


An Instant in Forever

by Eagle_Grass_16



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (I hope they're not too cringey??? lmao), (for a case of course), (kinda), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Crossdressing, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Graphic Description, Love Confessions, M/M, Rings, Sherlock being self-sacrificing, Time Travel, Wedding Fluff, Weddings, here's a warning that it might not be the happiest ending, of a nightmare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27056365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eagle_Grass_16/pseuds/Eagle_Grass_16
Summary: Most people take the passage of time for granted. They complain about it—ageing, dying, not having enough time. For them, time is consistent: a great river flowing at a uniform rate, carrying them in its indifferent embrace past familiar shores and through jagged rocks, unsympathetic and irreversible. For them, time flows and flows until they’ve taken their last breaths, their hearts have stopped pumping, their bodies lie broken on the farthest of all shores.For Sherlock, time is a film; or perhaps more aptly, a unidirectional movie projector.He can presspause.▶
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 29





	An Instant in Forever

**Author's Note:**

> So first. We will kindly overlook any awkward dialogue, plot holes, and other such issues.
> 
> In case you didn't pay attention to the tags, though, I'm not guaranteeing that the ending is _happy_ , though it's also not unambiguously _sad_ , either. Proceed at your own discretion.
> 
> P.S. Writing wedding vows took me so long and I remember googling _so many_ examples. Please be generous lol. Thanks.
> 
> (Also like. I don't mention condoms in the sex scenes, but I believe in safe sex.)

Most people take the passage of time for granted. They complain about it—ageing, dying, not having enough _time_. For them, time is consistent: a great river flowing at a uniform rate, carrying them in its indifferent embrace past familiar shores and through jagged rocks, unsympathetic and irreversible. For them, time flows and flows until they’ve taken their last breaths, their hearts have stopped pumping, their bodies lie broken on the farthest of all shores.

For Sherlock, time is a film; or perhaps more aptly, a unidirectional movie projector.

He can press _pause_.

▶

The first time Sherlock stopped time, he was seven years old. He was in a game of hide and seek with Mycroft, and it was Sherlock’s turn to hide.

Sherlock sat huddled in the giant wooden drawer in his grandfather’s dusty office. He had recently taught himself the art of lockpicking, and it was satisfying to apply the skill to his grandfather’s mysterious locked drawer. To his slight disappointment, all he found in the large space were three compasses, their surfaces dusted over, and a few old journals with lots of numbers and symbols that resembled some sort of coordinates. Sherlock had displaced the journals into the other (unlocked) drawers and seated himself snugly in the space he had emptied out, sneezing only twice.

It had been more than twenty-four minutes since they began. If Mycroft didn’t find him in the next five minutes and twenty-eight seconds, Sherlock would win this round, and Sherlock wanted very badly to win—he had never won anything against Mycroft; it was unacceptable.

Sherlock held back a sneeze and bit down on his bottom lip, trying to distract himself from the painful way his hip bone was pressed against one of the compasses. His eyes were tearing up; something had gotten in them. His stomach gurgled and he tensed. Four minutes and five seconds.

On the cusp of sneezing, Sherlock attempted to take in a breath through his mouth, but the dust particles in the air caught in his throat, and, unable to hold back the itch, Sherlock tried to clear his throat. To his horror, the action led to more coughs, and he knocked his head on the roof of the drawer space in his panic to subdue his wheezing. He managed, but his vision turned blurry as his tear ducts worked against him, covering his eyes with a thin film of fluid that was more viscous than tears. Sherlock blinked frantically, then glanced at his watch. Two minutes and thirteen seconds.

The footsteps became audible at one minute and thirty-one seconds. Sherlock’s shoulders ached and he was stiff and uncomfortable and he had been for the past almost half hour and there was _no way_ that he was going to lose to Mycroft this time. Not after all this _suffering._

But Mycroft was coming closer. Sherlock could hear the squelch of his pretentious shoes on the floor, and then came the unmistakable click of the door being opened. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and slowed his breathing so much that he might as well have been holding it.

Even as Mycroft’s footsteps paused in his perusal of the office, Sherlock knew he was going to be found. His jaw clenched in indignation as his mind whirred and he arrived at the conclusion that Mycroft had most definitely known where he was the entire time, that his fourteen-year-old brother had not really wanted to _play_ with Sherlock—he’d used the game as a rouse to dispose of Sherlock for half an hour to himself.

Sherlock thought that he hated his brother in that moment.

 _Twenty-six seconds._ Sherlock was biting his lip so hard that he tasted the salty tang of blood. His nails dug into his palms as insistently as the compass was pressing into his hip. He wanted to tell Mummy—no, he wanted to kick Mycroft. He wanted to cry. He wanted to _win_ for once— _just this once._

Sherlock’s shoulders drooped, and he waited. And waited, and waited, and—

_Nothing._

Surely twenty-six seconds had passed, he thought. He made himself as still as possible and listened. There was no sound of Mycroft’s footstep—Sherlock couldn’t even hear Mycroft’s _breathing_.

Sherlock remained huddled, cramped, inside the drawer for a few more moments, not daring to check his watch for the paranoia that his movements would give him away (this was silly, since Mycroft no doubt already knew of Sherlock’s presence). Finally, cautiously, Sherlock pushed open the drawer and stuck his neck out to look around.

There was Mycroft, mid-step. Brows drawn downward. His expression one of haughty victory. _Unmoving._

Sherlock frowned. He climbed out of the drawer and advanced towards his brother. “Mycroft?” he called. His brother did not respond. Sherlock gulped, his heart pounding, and, standing slightly on his toes, waved his hand in front of Mycroft’s face; Mycroft didn’t so much as blink.

Sherlock glanced around the room, taking in the half-ajar door and his brother’s left shoe, which was suspended in mid-air. His eyes landed on the large old-fashioned clock on the wall of the office. Its hands weren’t moving; at first Sherlock thought that perhaps it had run out of power some time ago, but when he rotated his own wristwatch to look at the time, it was static, too.

Sherlock almost giggled. He poked and prodded at Mycroft, then—because he didn’t know how “long” this time-stop would last—Sherlock shoved the drawer back closed, lifted the piece of caramel candy from his brother’s pocket and scuttled out of the room.

He was halfway down the steps to the dining room when time began again. He skipped leisurely into the kitchen just as his mother was setting out the dishes for dinner, and by the time Mycroft stalked into the dining room with an expression of thunderous confusion, Sherlock was happily slurping down a strand of spaghetti.

Later that night, Mycroft insinuated himself into Sherlock’s room and glared at him. “You _cheated,_ ” Mycroft bit out accusingly.

Sherlock stuck his tongue out at his brother. “Did not.”

“You did,” Mycroft stated, and this time, his tone was strangely resigned. After a pause, he continued. “Have you ever done that before?”

Sherlock’s toes curled. He didn’t want to tell Mycroft about time stopping—that was _his_ secret. “Done what?” he asked innocently.

Mycroft scowled. “You… stopped time,” he said. “I know you did—there’s no use lying to me. You know that.”

Sherlock huffed and folded his arms across his chest. “What do you want?”

“Was that the first time you did it?” Mycroft demanded.

“ _I_ did it?” Sherlock echoed, finding the idea that _he_ had stopped time rather absurd.

“Yes, you,” Mycroft replied. “ _Was that the first time?_ ”

Sherlock was taken aback by the hardness of his brother’s question. Mycroft seemed… anxious, and Sherlock had only very rarely (if ever) seen his brother _anxious._ “I—yes, all right? It’s the first time! Why are you asking me this?”

Mycroft stepped forward suddenly, and the look in his eyes was so grave that Sherlock forgot to shove him away. He let his brother’s hands fall on his shoulders and shake him lightly. “Sherlock, listen to me,” he brother began. “You must try not to do it again.”

◀▶

Of course, Sherlock did it again. And again. And again. He learned wield it at will.

He stopped time when an unruly criminal was too fast, or when he was snooping in someone’s home and the person returned before he was completely finished. He stopped time that first time he needed to defuse a bomb, and he stopped time again when a pram with a four-month-old baby somehow travelled by itself into the middle of the road, ending up straight in the path of a lorry with a drunk driver.

Each time, Mycroft knew he did it, and Sherlock knew he disapproved. But Mycroft had more or less acquiesced to Sherlock’s behaviour, because he also knew that Sherlock only stopped time when he absolutely needed to, which was not that often.

“No more than three times a year,” Mycroft had warned him as he fastened a watch around Sherlock’s wrist. “And whenever you do it, let me know beforehand—that’ll enable me to do it with you. Just press down on this right here,” Mycroft instructed, showing Sherlock the little button on the side of the watchband.

“Troublesome,” Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft’s gaze was stern, and Sherlock tried to pretend that he didn’t see the concern in his eyes. “You know why you must.”

Sherlock made a show of rolling his eyes, but he did know why.

◀▶

Mycroft told Sherlock what he knew when Sherlock was twelve years old.

The numbers and symbols in their grandfather’s journals were, in fact, coordinates—just not in the traditional sense. They were moments in time; specific nodes of time-space. There were more journals than those Sherlock had found. Mycroft had taken the more expository ones and pored through them.

Their grandfather, Mycroft later told Sherlock, had been secretly researching and experimenting with the notion of time warping in his lifetime—he must have succeeded to a certain extent, Sherlock mused in reply, considering Mycroft and himself.

Mycroft lifted one shoulder in a shrug and murmured that their grandfather must also have paid a steep price for his aspirations, proceeding to explain to Sherlock, to the best of his knowledge, how it all works and why Sherlock must avoid doing it.

The more he uses his ability to interfere with time, the less stable his own timeline would become. The tapestry of time is infinite, woven with the timelines of all the objects and organisms in the universe. These threads intertwine endlessly and are intricate in their fabrication, and the progression of every instant shifts the entire tapestry of time, much like a loom pushing forward a piece of cloth in order to weave the next increments—and Sherlock has the ability to stop the movement of the loom, freezing the tapestry in that one moment.

But it comes with a price, as all miraculous things do. To stop the tapestry of time, Sherlock must extricate his personal timeline from the rest of the cloth. Like an errant thread, Sherlock stops time by clogging the loom, thereby preventing the machine from bringing forth the next moment in time; and like an errant thread, Sherlock’s timeline becomes looser and looser each time he forces it to catch on some nook or cranny of the loom. One day, it might unravel.

But even as Mycroft explained, they both knew that Sherlock would never be able to completely abstain from using his ability—

“Two errant threads,” Mycroft said softly, when he had finished, “can more easily hold the tapestry.”

And it was all fine: Three times a year was more than enough for Sherlock; he didn’t need to stop time to deduce or to solve crimes, nor did he care enough to save every dying life he came across.

It was enough—until John.

◀▶

John Watson found danger delightful.

Sherlock found John’s company very enjoyable. In fact, he rather cherished it.

Sherlock didn’t want forever—he knew the absurdity of that notion—he only wanted to weave their timelines as intricately together as he could, to run them all over the most colourful spots of the tapestry.

▶▶

Sherlock stopped time when John became the target of three guns so he could remove the magazines from two of them and position himself to tackle John out of the way of the third gun’s bullet. He did it again when they found themselves locked in a room that was gradually being pumped with concentrated gaseous nitrogen oxide so he could pick the lock and facilitate their escape, and again when John’s latest (sketchy) girlfriend tried to poison him through his wine.

Within half a year of meeting John Watson, Sherlock had used his ability four times.

Mycroft admonished him, his words sounding strangely like a plea. Sherlock nodded sulkily in accordance, but when he went home, he took off the watch Mycroft had given him and stuck it in an empty drawer. He didn’t need Mycroft breathing down his back.

The only thing he wanted was for John to be happy and alive in as many instants as possible until the end of his thread.

▶▶

Sherlock stopped time when he threw himself off the roof of St. Bartholomew’s so he could fake his death convincingly enough that John believed it.

▶▶

The first time Sherlock intentionally stopped time for purely selfish reasons was when he returned to find John proposing to Mary Morstan.

It hurt.

Sherlock’s smile—fuelled by the thought of reuniting with John—slipped off his face as he deduced John’s intentions: a new suit, new shoes, the outline of a ring box, the nervous worrying of his fingers on his trousers. In that moment, Sherlock wished he could do more than pause the flow of time—he wished he could rewind it, or rewrite it, or break it—anything but watch as John was taken from him. Sherlock knew it was not fair: he had left first.

It did not make it any easier.

Inside his little hub of frozen time, Sherlock blinked away the unwelcome tightness in his chest and recollected himself with deep breaths of air that was neither existing nor non-existent.

Then he let go, feeling the world around him slip back into cadence, and approached John.

▶

When Sherlock taught John how to dance, all he could think was that John was no longer his.

John’s fingers were touching Sherlock’s, their breaths mingled together, their legs shadowing each other—John was as close to Sherlock as he would ever be, but they were far, far apart. Sherlock hurt; the moment hurt.

He froze it, stepped closer to John. Sherlock was the only thing that was moving in this non-moment, and when he pressed his lips to John’s, he knew that it was not John whom he was kissing, if one could even call it that.

But it was the closest he would ever get.

▶

John’s wedding was perfect: John was happy, Sherlock delivered his speech without choking or otherwise embarrassing John or himself (too much), people cried and laughed and there was even a murder to solve.

After he left, Sherlock went home and took out his grandfather’s journals. Stared at the numbers and the symbols and thought and _thought_. Seventy-three hours later, he wrote down his own numbers and symbols, coordinates of moments that Sherlock could not access beyond the flimsy borders of his mind.

He remembered all of it—their first meeting, their first case ( _all_ of their cases), their inane arguments, John’s laughter and anger and tears and voice.

221B Baker Street was painfully quiet.

◀▶

Sherlock wondered why his grandfather had been so devoted to the entire concept of time. He wondered what his grandfather’s coordinates lead to. He wondered if, perhaps, his grandfather was not simply dead—if, perhaps, his grandfather’s timeline had been ripped out somewhen and left dangling in a particular non-moment, never to be reconciled with the greater tapestry of time. _There are eternities_ , Sherlock thought, _you just have to rip yourself out of now and into them._

_And even if you did land yourself a forever, time would go on after your eternity—it’s only that “after eternity” would never arrive for you, however long you wait._

▶▶

Sherlock didn’t mean to: it began as the most convenient measure for a case, and there was no John to stop him or to yell at him after that first dose.

Being high was always a marvelling experience. Sherlock might have even described it as _sobering_ —after all, it was a sensation that never failed to remind him of his own humanity—if he weren’t so acutely aware of the way brain chemistry worked. Cocooned in the fascination of illusions, lost in a fabric of a reality of his own mind’s making, Sherlock revelled in his mortality—transience, ephemerality, impermanence; whatever people called it. His ability was inaccessible to him in his intoxicated state, and those moments, however brief they were, were ones in which he could experience time the same way as everyone else: like a droplet of rain that had finally blended into an ocean—inseparable, unpossessing of his own form.

He was part of the world.

▶

Mycroft gave Sherlock two weeks—not because he approved of Sherlock’s choices, but because it was two weeks during which Sherlock would not use his ability.

At the hospital, hooked up with tubes and surrounded by the scent of antiseptic, Sherlock pretended to be unconscious, taking in the frustrated snaps of John’s footsteps on the polished floor. “ _Sherlock,_ ” John said to the window. Turned around. “How _could_ you?”

Sherlock did not apologise.

He heard John sit down on the chair beside the hospital bed. Heard the harshness of his breaths, the frustrated taps of his shoes on the floor. He heard John’s silence more clearly than he had ever wished to hear anything, and Sherlock wanted to reach out and touch John, feel his skin warm against his own, the pulse of his veins as they traversed through the moments together.

A tear escaped Sherlock’s closed eyelid when, voice ragged and thin, John whispered, “I wish I could hate you.”

John didn’t notice; even without looking, Sherlock knew there were tears on John’s face, too.

Sherlock wondered what he would find in John’s eyes if he were to pause time right then and turn around.

▶

His head throbbed, he saw spots in blank air, he was vomiting every two hours and _he missed the drugs so much._

◀◀

“You’ll become unravelled,” Mycroft told him. “If you do it so much, you’ll be unthreaded from space-time.”

Sherlock was sixteen years old and he did not care for Mycroft patronising him. “Immortality?” he sneered. “That’s not bad. It’s one of humanity’s greatest desires.”

“Sherlock!” Mycroft said, eyes and voice equally hard. “It’s not like that. Humanity’s romantic notion of _forever_ is nothing but asinine nonsense. You should know _better_. We’re talking _timeless_. We’re talking becoming _trapped_ in one singular instant, endlessly—you have no idea what that’d be like—”

“Oh, and _you_ do?” Sherlock interrupted, doing his best to ignore the trickle of unease down the column of his spine, lodging in the spaces between the vertebrae.

“I don’t,” Mycroft replied. “I’m bloody scared of it, Sherlock. So should you.”

Sherlock raised a brow at his brother in what he hoped was a flippant fashion. “Scared? Of ‘becoming unravelled’? Mycroft, you do realise how absurd you sound, I hope?”

“Sherlock—”

“I’m not going to be bloody _unravelled_ , Mycroft. And even if that were to happen, I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to rethread myself. Do try to think dynamically.” Sherlock levelled as indifferent a look as he could on his brother. “In any case, it is no concern of yours what I do.”

▶▶

The first night they let him home, Sherlock dreamed—of John. Perhaps it was the familiar shape and scent of this flat that they had once shared, or perhaps he was now remembering his dreams because he was no longer being administered the sedative-infused IV from the hospital. It had been a long time since Sherlock had last been able to recall his dreams. (His hospital nights were dreamless, and prior to that, his drug-addled bouts of sleep while high yielded nothing sophisticated enough to be called “dreams,” and even before that—well, Sherlock wasn’t known for his regular sleep schedule.)

Sherlock’s eyes blinked open in the darkness, already sufficiently accommodated to the lack of light. His breaths were short, his heartbeats ran at approximately 110 bpm, his throat felt dry—and he had an erection.

Sherlock’s jaw ticked and he closed his eyes, concerting an attempt to regulate his overwrought physical state. His dream lingered in his mind: John’s lips on his neck, his clavicles and then lower, his tongue darting out to dip into Sherlock’s navel. Sherlock felt the chillness of conscious reality contrasted starkly against the warmth of John’s breaths caressing over his stomach in his dream. The way John’s skin felt against Sherlock’s own and the way the soft whispers of John’s voice could have, in the moments of his dream, convinced Sherlock to do almost anything.

Sherlock let out an unsteady suspire as he allowed his hand to slip down into his pants, giving in to the whims of his body—and it was times like this that he couldn’t deny that his body was more than mere transport. Sherlock breathed in raggedly as his fingers curled around himself, the sensation an amalgamation of relief and yearning and guilt.

He kept quiet, because any noises he made would only serve to remind him of how _alone_ he was. His mind played a miscellaneous slideshow, of memories of John’s smile and laughter interspersed with the febrile scenes from Sherlock’s dream. Sherlock choked back his gasps and groans, holding his free arm stiffly against his side, his fingers twisted in the bedsheets. His toes curled so tightly that he could feel his pulse in his feet, and pressure was building in the pit of his abdomen.

When his orgasm washed over him, Sherlock let his hips buck and his spine arch without restraint (no point in that, really). The pleasant rush of neurotransmitters lasted for the few glorious moments to which pleasant things seem to be limited. Afterwards, he could feel the ejaculate on his fingers and, grimacing slightly, slowly opened his eyes. His lashes left chilly dampness when they brushed against his cheeks, but no tears fell, and that, he thought grimly, was a success, at least.

▶▶

When Mary left, Sherlock hated himself for daring to hope.

▶

“God, I missed this,” John said, breathless after a chase through two streets that terminated in a rundown cul-de-sac.

They were surrounded by decrepit buildings and doors with rusted locks. They had just handed a murderer over to the NSY and Sherlock had glared at Lestrade and, in a tone that made it very clear there was no room for compromise, had told him that their police statements will wait until tomorrow. John had given a low chuckle at Sherlock’s demonstrated obstinacy, and Sherlock had cherished the sound—it had been so long since he had been privy to it.

Now it was just them—John with his head held up and a loose, relaxed half-smile on his face and Sherlock with his gaze trained on John. Only ever on John: no one else was as interesting as John.

John let out a long, untroubled sigh and looked over at Sherlock. “C’mon, let’s go. You’ve scratches on your cheek and your fingers are still bleeding.”

Sherlock lifted one brow. “Your mouth is bleeding and there’s a five-centimetre-long abrasion on your left arm—you’re not much better off.”

John barked a conceding laugh, and his eyes were fond when they met Sherlock’s. “Fair enough.”

They rode a taxi back to Baker Street, whereupon John very naturally followed Sherlock into the flat, his footsteps sure and comfortable. For a moment, as they ascended the stairs and before Sherlock opened the door, it seemed as if they had gone back to a time before Sherlock had jumped and John had married and everything had gone wrong.

John hesitated after stepping into 221B. Sherlock watched as John’s eyes scanned the space—the armchairs, the skull atop the mantelpiece, the stack of letters, haphazardly strewn.

“It’s sure been a while,” John murmured.

“Has it,” Sherlock replied. It wasn’t a question.

John appeared to blink himself out of his sentimentalities. The smile he directed at Sherlock was no longer as at ease as it had been right after the chase. His eyes had become more guarded. “Well—let’s get cleaned up, shall we?”

“Yes,” Sherlock allowed, and settled himself onto the sofa. “Medical kit’s where it’s always been. Help yourself.”

John retrieved the kit and settled beside Sherlock, holding a palm out expectantly. Sherlock draped his bleeding fingers—they weren’t really _bleeding_ anymore, so they were technically better described as bloody fingers—in John’s extended hand, his entire being attuned to the familiar calluses of John’s hands, the familiar pressure as John dabbed antiseptic then ointment onto Sherlock’s wounds, the familiar folds in the way John bandaged them. When it was done, John kept Sherlock’s hand in his for three seconds longer than strictly necessary, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it, before Sherlock (with reluctance hidden by practised ease) withdrew his newly wrapped hand.

“Thank you. Now, the cheek?” Sherlock asked lightly, turning slightly.

John’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Right—yes. Hold still,” he instructed, scooting closer.

Sherlock’s breath wanted to catch. It didn’t—not even when John’s face was so close to Sherlock’s own that the tip of John’s nose just barely brushed Sherlock’s skin.

They had Chinese takeaway straight from the containers, because what tableware the flat did have had all either been used to hold chemicals and chopped-up body parts or somehow been broken by virtue of Sherlock having left them at inopportune locations throughout the flat. Afterwards, John settled into his chair—the chair that had been empty for so long, now—and turned on some crap telly, and Sherlock settled into his own, pretending to read a scientific journal on obscure cases of food poisoning.

“John?” Sherlock ventured as the show on the television went on pause and inane advertisements ran across the screen.

John looked over at Sherlock. “Hm?”

Sherlock kept his hesitating to a minimal—“Move back,” he said. “It’s the most practical course of action—with Mary gone, and all. It would help take your mind off her, and splitting the rent is more economical than you living by yourself. Plus Mrs. Hudson has been complaining about the untidiness of the flat, and you being here would also make it much more convenient when there are cases. And—”

“Ok.”

There were three more justifications that Sherlock had been prepared to use to convince John; none of them was the actual reason.

“Good,” Sherlock said.

▶

John to moved back to Baker Street the following week, and for a while it was a very delicate balance of pleasantries and careful bickering and tentative concern. Sherlock took cases and John accompanied him. They fell back into their old rhythm so gradually that by the time they did, it no longer felt quite as familiar.

But Sherlock would take it.

So Sherlock kept his feelings to himself— _it’s just chemicals in the brain_ , he told himself, although that excuse had stopped being convincing long ago. Sherlock still left his experiments all over the kitchen table and tossed jars of preserved maggots (amongst other substances) in cupboards along with foodstuffs; John very naturally took up complaining about the body parts in the fridge and put it upon himself to stock it with edible things; and although Sherlock found the domestic proximity both a relief and a torture, it was more relief than torture.

On the nights that he deigned to sleep, steeling himself to brave nightmares in the dark, Sherlock took comfort in John’s presence upstairs, and on those nights, he could usually almost manage to persuade himself that this was enough.

That, as long as there was even one picture of him within the photo album of John’s life, it was enough.

◀▶

It had to be enough—if he were nothing but a series of tides, Sherlock would dash upon the shores of John’s life, again and again, in hopes of one day splashing far enough ashore.

▶▶

The man looked a nightmare.

He was naked, his wrists and ankles cuffed to a metal pole behind him. Whoever had done this had burned rings around the man’s wrists and ankles where they met the handcuffs—to make it _hurt_ from even the smallest movements. The man’s upper lip had been sliced through from the philtrum to his gums; his nose was broken; one of his eyes was missing, the socket crusted with black-brown dried blood; there were painful, overlapping lacerations both months-old and days-recent all over the man’s torso and back; and his fingers had been skinned, wrapped with duct tape, then broken.

The worst of it was that the man was not dead.

John looked sick (Sherlock wondered briefly if the former army doctor was involuntarily recalling some unpleasant memories), and despite the characteristic thrum of excitement whenever he was met with something truly interesting, even Sherlock felt tendrils of unease.

▼

On the ride back, John sat five centimetres closer to Sherlock than he typically did. Back in the flat, John planted himself in a chair by the kitchen table and attempted to read as Sherlock knocked through his experiments. When Sherlock stepped out of the bathroom after a shower, John blinked furiously from his half-asleep state on the sofa, the television droning in the background.

Sherlock regarded him for two seconds before he took a breath and sat down beside John.

“Talk,” he demanded.

“What?”

“You’ve got something you’d like to say, so say it.”

John began to shook his head, the reaction almost automatic. “I don’t—”

“ _John._ ” More emphatically.

John looked like he was about to protest, but when he turned to look at Sherlock, Sherlock could see the dissent drain from him. John’s shoulder slumped, and he threw his head onto the back of the sofa. “I’m not sure what you want me to say, Sherlock,” he said.

“I’d like to know why you’ve been acting… atypically,” Sherlock began, picking his words carefully. He took John’s raised brows as an unspoken _go on._ “You’ve been insinuating yourself closer into my personal space since this morning, after we went to the crime scene.”

John snorted. “ _You_ ’re lecturing me on personal space?”

Sherlock frowned slightly. “I’m not _lecturing_ you. I have no, ah, objections to it. I am simply sharing my observations with you and hoping you would provide me with an answer.”

John held Sherlock’s gaze for a little less than five seconds before suddenly averting his gaze. Then he blurted, “Bloody—I’m just—are you all right?”

Sherlock was taken aback. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked. _Shouldn’t_ I _be the one asking that?_

“I—well. It’s just—Mycroft mentioned that you, um, might have”—John grimaced and seemed to steel himself as he continued—“that you might’ve had certain, uh, experiences. While you were, you know. Gone. For two years.”

_Oh._

_Bloody_ Mycroft, for thinking that he had the right to just— _tell John_ about it. Sherlock felt rooted to his seat, and his body was almost frozen, except for his sharp intakes of breath and the accompanying rise and fall of his chest.

He had not really thought about it—letting John know what he had done and experienced for the two years during which he was dead to the world. He hadn’t thought about talking to anyone about it, for that matter; Mycroft had known because he was Mycroft and of course he had, and Sherlock knew that it pained his brother to not have been able to prevent it, but when Sherlock was offered therapy, he turned it down. There was no need, he had been certain. He would just delete it once the information became irrelevant.

He still hadn’t managed to delete it.

There was a hand on his shoulder, tentative but nonetheless grounding. It made Sherlock realise how tense he had become.

“Fuck,” John swore softly. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

“What for?” Sherlock replied tersely, and the sharpness in his voice surprised himself.

“For—bringing it up.”

“Wrong reason,” Sherlock responded. “You knew—you’ve known of it all this time, and you didn’t—why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Sorry,” John apologized again. “I just—I didn’t think you’d appreciate it.”

“And you thought I would appreciate it now?”

“No, I—look, Sherlock,” John said with a weary sigh, “I was just… worried about you. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Mycroft told me. And I’m sorry for not being there for you when you probably could have used my help.” John placed his hand over one of Sherlock’s. “Mycroft told me you turned down therapy.”

Sherlock clenched his jaw and glared at John, even though it wasn’t his fault.

“Sherlock, it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it with me. You don’t have to—ever. But just—not everything can be deleted, and you’re not alone, ok? Just know that.”

They were both silent for a solid minute before Sherlock asked, “When?”

Somehow, John knew what he meant. “The day you asked me to move back here and I agreed. I got home and Mycroft was there, waiting.”

“I see.” Sherlock swallowed and composed himself. Then he said, “For the record, John—I am perfectly well. I do not tend to project other people’s suffering onto myself.”

John squeezed Sherlock’s hand. “Good.” He stood up and stretched. “Tea?”

“Yes—don’t use the kettle on the cooker. I’ve not completely cleaned the stains out yet,” Sherlock added.

“Stains from what?” John asked, sounding like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

“Human blood and breastmilk.”

“Bloody hell, Sherlock.” But there was the trace of fondness in his voice.

▶

“Sherlock?” John said, frowning from where he had just stepped into his room and stopped when he’d caught sight of Sherlock, sprawled out listlessly on his bed. “What are you doing?”

Sherlock flicked his eyes over at John—boring day at the clinic, long queue at the supermarket, still no new girlfriend—then back up at the ceiling. “Thinking,” he replied. _More precisely—trying to delete._

“Why do you need to think on my bed?”

“I was trying to sleep but couldn’t. So now I’m thinking.”

John raised his eyebrows. “What I meant was, why in _my_ room on _my_ bed? Don’t you have your own?”

“I did,” Sherlock acknowledged.

John’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Sherlock had never admitted that he enjoyed riling John up like this, with simple, everyday things, but he did—he treasured this domesticity.

“Sherlock, what happened to your own room?”

“Oh, my room is perfectly fine,” Sherlock replied breezily. Then, as an afterthought, “Well. Mostly. I only broke my bed.”

“What were you _doing_?”

“Experimenting.”

“With _what_?” John asked, his incredulity building.

“Minimum force required to compress the typical bedsprings to their deformation point.”

“So you decided that it was a good idea to use your own bed?”

“Well, I was hardly going to get a bed just so I could _break_ it,” Sherlock pointed out.

John gave a slight shake of his head, sighed and asked, “Have you eaten?”

“Of course not,” Sherlock scoffed. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve just been lying there,” John said wryly. “I’ll go put something together.”

▼

Sherlock opened his eyes to the incomplete darkness of London’s night. Around 2 AM. He had fallen asleep in John’s bed.

A duvet had been thrown over him: his duvet. John must have retrieved it from his room downstairs. As for John himself—Sherlock’s heart pounded in his chest as he took in the steady rustle of John’s breathing. He wanted to turn to face John and hug John to him and feel John’s breaths on his skin and the rise and fall of John’s chest on his own. He neither turned nor reached out.

Instead, Sherlock lay there, listening to the regular sighs of John’s snores until he fell back to sleep.

▶◀

_Sherlock gets one lungful of pungent air before his head is once more dunked below the tub of sewage water. He’s too slow to close his mouth, and some of the caustic liquid makes its way into his oral cavity. Bitter. He swallows it down along with the urge to wretch, doing his best to hold his breath. Tries to focus on something other than the tightness in his chest, other than the insistent ache for air—the nails digging into the base of his skull, scratching the vulnerable patch of skin at his nape; the dull sore where his hair is tugged back at the same time his skull is pressed down firmly; the pain of being forced to kneel on his bloodied knees._

_When the hands finally decide that it’s enough, they jerk at his hair roughly, and the sensation is so uncomfortable that Sherlock can’t help but gasp reflexively, taking in one more acerbic mouthful of the wastewater before his face surfaces and he’s coughing and heaving._

_Sherlock is supporting himself with his palms against the cold, uneven stone floor. His hair is dripping, and it’s with a dulled sense of horror that he watches the corpse of a leech fall from the tangles of his hair and land with a muted squelch beside his little finger._

_The hands haul up the tub of wastewater, and before Sherlock can muster the effort to process it, he’s drenched; he can feel the impact of little objects on his bare, lacerated backside (more dead leeches, amongst other things, he manages to think). Then there are footsteps and a slamming noise, and Sherlock is alone and covered in filth._

_Sherlock remains in his hunched-over position for a while; he doesn’t know how long. When he finally pushes himself up onto his knees, feeling dead things drop from his back onto the floor, and looks up and around him, Sherlock finds himself in what seems to be a hotel room. He looks back down and the stone floor is no longer there—a waxed, wooden surface has replaced it. There are no dead leeches on the floor._

_Sherlock tentatively runs his fingers up his backside, feeling the sticky moistness of the sewage water still on his skin. He’s the dirtiest thing in the room._

_Feeling sick, he pushes himself up and, stumbling, brings himself to the bathroom. He steps into the shower. Turns on the tap. Quickly discovers that there’s no hot water._

_Sherlock grits his teeth and grabs blindly for a bottle marked “гель для душа.” Russian, he has the presence of mind to note. He haphazardly shoves the bit of information on a random shelf in his mind. In the next moment, he’s furiously rubbing the shower gel over his abraded skin. By the time he’s done, Sherlock is shivering and his raw, scrubbed skin is burning._

_He bundles himself tightly in a bright pink bath towel and walks out of the bathroom on legs that are just a little steadier, but the sight that greets him on the other side of the doorway has his knees feeling hatefully weak once more. No longer is he in the hotel room with the smooth wooden floor underneath the pads of his feet._

_He’s in some sort of underground laboratory, with a long metal table at the centre, a strange, orangish lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling and miscellaneous equipment scattered along a storage cart._

_A masked man stands by the metal table. “Oh, good! You’re here. Shall we get started?”_

_Sherlock feels utterly defenceless, standing there barefoot in the hotel bathroom’s bright pink towel, his curls clean but dripping water like tears. Where the drops hit the ground, strange fluorescent green stains bloom._

_Hands grab his elbows and propel him towards the metal table. They manoeuvre him so that he lies on his stomach on the biting chill of the surface, stripped of his towel._

_The first cut of the blade is less painful than it is_ cold. _Sherlock inhales sharply but makes no sound. He tries to gauge the depth and width of the cut, to identify the muscle that’s being nicked, to pretend that he is the one doing the dissecting, not the one being dissected._

_By the thirteenth cut, Sherlock’s jaw is clenched in pain. He can feel beads of blood trickling from the sites of the wounds and slipping down his back to pool at the dip of his lordotic curve, and the tugging of crusted blood on his skin as he tenses involuntarily from time to time._

_A particularly long cut has Sherlock hissing out loud: a ravaged, primal sibilant of acute discomfort. Then he feels the skin on either side of the cut being pried apart, feels an illogical chill as fingers peel open his backside, exposing his spine to the air—_ illogical, _Sherlock chides to himself,_ there are no nerves on the surface of bones. _Sherlock hears what sounds like the whirring of a surgical drill mere seconds before he feels the point pressure digging into his T2. He doesn’t know how he’s able to identify it; he simply knows._

_Sherlock closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his face is covered by cloth and he’s holding a drill and burying its spinning tip into the T3 of a cadaver on a metal table. He spares a glance around. He’s at Barts with a face mask over his mouth and nose and latex gloves between his fingers and the cold, stiff flesh of the corpse. He’s not sure why he’s drilling into the cadaver’s thoracic spine, but there must be a reason, and so he mechanically sinks the drill into T3, pulls it back out and continues onto T4._

_“Some coffee, Sherlock?” Molly’s voice asks from the doorway. Sherlock notes that it sounds raspier than usual._

_“Two sugars,” he replies without looking up from his work. He hears Molly’s steps retreat._

_A minute later she returns and says, her tone apologetic, “Sorry, Sherlock. We’re out of sugar, so I put two tablespoons of salt instead. That all right with you?”_

_Sherlock looks up, his brows furrowed, and is about to ask her why anyone would think that it’s acceptable to add sodium chloride to coffee when he takes in her appearance._

_She’s naked, her flesh grey and looking entirely too dry to be healthy. Sherlock can see the veins on her translucent cheeks, and even from where he is (ten metres away, at least) he can see the bloodshot quality of her eyes. Strands of her hair are plastered to her forehead and where her ears meet the sides of her face, Sherlock thinks he sees stitches, as if someone had sewn the appendages onto her head. Her lips are cracked and so dark that they look black, and she’s holding a cup of steaming coffee in a four-fingered hand with gnarled, greenish-black nails. She looks like a cadaver herself, or zombie, Sherlock thinks—but no, that doesn’t make sense, because zombies don’t_ exist. _Hallucinations, then._

_“Fine,” he says, looking back down where the electric drill is descending into T7. “Just set it here.” He hears Molly approach._

_A_ plunk _tells Sherlock that she has placed the cup at the head of the table where the cadaver’s face is planted into the table, and he says, “That’s too far away, Molly. I can’t reach it.”_

_Molly lets out a crisp little laugh. “What are you talking about, Sherlock? It’s right beside your head—you can definitely reach it.”_

_Sherlock frowns and looks up, confused. Molly’s eyes are cast down at the mop of black hair on the back of the cadaver’s head, and with dawning horror Sherlock realises that she’s talking to the_ cadaver.

_Frantically, Sherlock rushes to the head of the table where Molly is standing—she’s wearing the dress she wore to John’s wedding, though her complexion still isn’t much improved, Sherlock observes absentmindedly—and roughly turns the cadaver’s head, hearing the dull cracking of the neck being manoeuvred violently into an unnatural angle. He finds himself looking into his own eyes—open and blank._

_There are cuts and bruises on his face, and his nose looks broken. Dazedly, Sherlock sets the electric drill (still whirring) down on the table and reaches out with his hand to touch his damaged face, only to find his fingers against the cool glass of a mirror._

_His latex gloves are gone, and when he looks closely at his fingers, he sees that they’re bent at angles that are all_ wrong. _Shakily, he picks up his violin, which is sitting on the closed toilet seat, and levers it onto his shoulder. He picks up his bow, slotting his bluish thumb into position above the frog, and brings the bow to the strings. The wayward-bending fingers of his left hand dance eerily on the fingerboard, and the violin begins to scream._

_“What are you playing, Sherlock?” John’s voice asks._

_Sherlock looks up and sees John in the doorway of the bathroom. “John,” he croaks. He lowers his violin and takes half a step towards John._

_“Keep playing!” John orders, his face suddenly frowning. “Why aren’t you playing, Sherlock?”_

_“Because it sounds bad,” Sherlock replies. “It sounds_ wrong, _John. I don’t know how to fix it.”_

_“What are you talking about, Sherlock? It sounds perfectly fine to me. It sounds beautiful.” And John looks happy again; he’s smiling dreamily. “I want you to keep playing.”_

_“All right,” Sherlock says. He raises his violin and begins to play again. The violin screeches in Sherlock’s ears, and the discordance grows louder and louder until it’s all Sherlock can hear._

_But John is still smiling, and his mouth is moving and Sherlock can’t hear him, but it’s ok because John likes this. John wants him to keep playing. And so Sherlock keeps playing, his bow jumping all over the place, his elbow waving wildly in the air. The E-string snaps; it arcs up and slices Sherlock on his cheek, but he dares not stop. His elbow bumps against the wall, and that’s not right—the bathroom is bigger than this, the wall shouldn’t be there._

_Sherlock looks up and sees reflections of himself. The walls are mirrors and they’re boxing him in. Panicked, he looks to John at the bathroom doorway, but John isn’t there and he’s staring at a blank mirror when he should be seeing his own reflection. Sherlock drops his violin and it shatters on the ground (also a mirror surface) like it’s made of glass._

_“John?” Sherlock gasps out like he’s drowning. “John? I’m sorry, John, for—for dying. For coming back. For leaving body parts in the fridge. John, I—”_

_“What are you talking about, Sherlock?” Molly’s voice asks, interrupting him. “There’s plenty of salt in the coffee. I made sure of it.”_

_Sherlock ignores her. “John?” he tries again._

_“Why aren’t you playing, Sherlock?” Mycroft’s voice asks._

_“Go away,” Sherlock says. “John? John, come back—I’ll play, I promise. The violin’s broken but I can put the pieces back together. I can fix it. I’ll play for however long you want me to. John!”_

_“What are you talking about, Sherlock?” John asks. “You can’t fix it—I’ve thrown away the pieces.”_

▶◀

Sherlock jolted awake with a ragged sob-like gasp of breath, chest heaving. He did not immediately process that John was also conscious—and speaking.

“—ou all right, Sherlock?”

Sherlock dropped a hand over his eyes and found them damp. Tears. He swallowed. “Fine,” he said, hearing his own voice muffled and hoarse.

John’s silence was uncertain. Then he spoke, tentative. “Nightmare?”

Sherlock’s breathing had calmed, and his heart had slowed to a manageable pace. “Obvious,” he croaked, trying for levity and failing spectacularly.

“… Right.” Then, “You said my name.”

“Did I,” Sherlock replied, flatly.

“You, ah, told me to ‘come back,’” John offered.

Sherlock made a noncommittal hum.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Sherlock said (his voice sounded almost normal). “I do not.”

“Ok,” John agreed.

They were quiet, both of their bodies held carefully still, and Sherlock thought that that was the end of it—he desperately hoped it was, hoped John would return to sleep and _forget_ about it, hoped that the fragile piece of normal they had wouldn’t change after this. Then he felt John’s hand on his shoulder, proffered for comfort, and, unable to help it, Sherlock dipped into the touch. John’s hand grew surer and with his other arm he reached over and manoeuvred Sherlock onto his side. “C’mere,” he murmured.

In a spell of weakness that he was sure he’d later regret, Sherlock burrowed into John with such abruptness that for a moment he felt John tense up, startled, and Sherlock was terrified that he’d ruined something; but then John’s body relaxed and his arms were around Sherlock and his hand was making soothing shapes on Sherlock’s back and Sherlock hadn’t known the extent to which he’d craved this.

“I’m here,” John murmured in his ear, his mouth so close that Sherlock could feel the warmth of his lips. “I’m _right here,_ Sherlock. It’s ok.”

And Sherlock crumbled.

Stinging tears welled up and stumbled out of his eyes, arcing down his cheeks, and his chest was so tight that it hurt. It _hurt_ —and _this:_ this was why emotions were bloody burdensome.

John said nothing as Sherlock shook in his arms; just waited and ran his hand comfortingly along Sherlock’s back. When the paroxysm eventually subsided and Sherlock could manage to keep his body still, he said with his voice still a bit broken, “John?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

John’s arms tightened perceptibly around Sherlock. “I missed you too, Sherlock.”

“John?”

“Yes?”

“Is your arm not uncomfortable?” Sherlock felt the muscle of John’s arm flex.

“Not really,” John replied.

“Ok. That’s—good.” A pause. “John?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think I’d be a pretty corpse?”

A soft, slightly confused chuckle. “I’d rather you not be a corpse, Sherlock.”

“… I see.”

▼

“John.”

“Yes?”

“I couldn’t delete it.”

John’s fingers were somehow carded through Sherlock’s curls. “You don’t have to.”

▼

When they woke it was pressed together and the sky was bright. Sherlock seized the opportunity to observe John as he slept: lips slightly parted, lashes fluttering as his eyes moved beneath his closed lids, chest rising and falling with his breaths, pressing up against Sherlock’s hands.

Unchecked, Sherlock raised a hand; his fingers were only centimetres from John’s check when John opened his eyes and Sherlock’s fingers curled into his palm and froze mid-air.

“Morning,” John slurred drowsily, letting go of Sherlock to facilitate a stretch; Sherlock hastily withdrew his hand from its awkward perch in the air.

“Good morning, John,” Sherlock replied.

John blinked a few times, as if clearing his eyes, and peered at Sherlock with a balance of concern, curiosity, and caution. “You good?”

“I’m fi—better.”

John smiled, and it made Sherlock’s stomach feel—strange. “Glad to hear that.” John pushed himself up. “I’ve got to use the loo.”

Sherlock nodded mutely. John wasn’t acting abnormal—he didn’t seem uncomfortable or embarrassed or to be in any of the other awkward emotional states that Sherlock had expected him to demonstrate. Sherlock sprawled himself more fully, spreading his limbs onto John’s side of bed, which was still warm from John’s body heat, and could not quite understand.

But in that moment, he thought he was almost happy.

▶

Sherlock did not sleep for the next three nights, but on the fourth, he stood in John’s doorway with a mix of expectance and uncertainty. His bed was still broken, and he’d not bothered to look for a new one; he tried not to think too hard about his reasons.

John looked at him with one raised brow from where he sat on the bed, then patted the mattress beside him as if it was the most normal thing, offering to share a bed with Sherlock. “Finally decided to sleep again, did you,” he said wryly.

Sherlock internally let out a sigh of relief and made his way to John’s bed, where he flopped himself down dramatically onto the mattress. “I’ve nothing else to do.”

John chuckled. “Right.”

Sherlock studied the ceiling and John scrolled through news articles on his mobile. Sherlock thought back to the last time he’d slept.

“Actually,” he said, slipping off the bed, “I think I’ll just go check up on that latest batch of maggots.”

▼

Sherlock checked on his most recent jar of maggots, wandered aimlessly around the living area of the flat, considered going back to John’s room, rebuked the idea as foolish—what if he had another nightmare?—thought about making do with his own bed but remembered the half dozen spots on it where the bedsprings had popped out, paced around some more, plucked a few notes on his violin and finally threw himself down onto the sofa.

He was, in fact, tired, and bored, and just in general feeling a persistent sense of dissatisfaction. He knew what it was, of course—he’d been feeling it since he’d dragged himself from John’s bed and refrained from returning. Sherlock craved proximity to John; he couldn’t have it.

He’d grabbed a book at random from the stack sitting atop the coffee table, and now he held it up and inspected it. A romance novel. _Dull._ It was John’s, then. Probably borrowed from Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock scrunched up his nose at the less-than-artistic cover.

He tossed the book back onto the table, turned on his side, and opted for glaring at the back cushions instead. He heard John’s questioning footsteps before he heard his equally enquiring voice. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock didn’t reply.

“What are you doing here?” John asked.

Sherlock kept himself still. Too still to feign sleep, he knew.

“Sherlock,” John said. “Come sleep. I know you’re tired.”

“I’m thinking,” Sherlock tried.

John sighed and Sherlock heard him approach. “If you’re worried about the nightmare—”

“ _I’m thinking,_ ” Sherlock interrupted, more emphatically.

“No, you’re trying to avoid talking to me,” John deadpanned.

Sherlock had no reply to make to that.

Satisfied, John continued—“If you’re worried about the thing with the nightmare, Sherlock, don’t. You’re tired, you’ve sacked your bed, so go and get some sleep in mine.”

“But—”

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock shuffled sulkily on the sofa until he was on his back again and could look at John. “You’re being stubborn,” he said, infusing his voice with accusing disdain.

“And you’re being obstinate,” John replied in stride. “Now get your arse off the goddamned sofa and come to sleep, Sherlock.”

Sherlock did. After all, it was exactly what he’d wanted.

▼

Sherlock dreamed of a very still world, in which everyone was as static as a statue except for Sherlock himself. He meandered through their motionless forms, now and then poking and prodding at their skin—warm, but frozen. Stiff—not dead, but _stopped_.

It wasn’t so much as nightmare as it was plain unsettling, and when Sherlock’s eyes shot open in the dark hours of pre-dawn, it was not with horror but with an intense longing for physical contact— _r_ _eal_ contact, contact in which both parties involved were capable of _movement_.

Or really: contact with John.

Sherlock was lying on his side and facing John, who was on his back, eyes shut and breathing even. In the unfinished darkness of the room, Sherlock could make out the rise and fall of John’s chest.

Sherlock shifted and just barely rested the edge of his temple to John’s shoulder, curling up into John, for a good while not quite daring to breathe.

But John’s presence was comforting, and Sherlock wondered how it was possible for him to want to trust someone this wholly as he allowed sleep to reclaim him.

▼

He woke with an arm flown over John’s torso and his ankles pressing against John’s. Sherlock kept his eyes closed and savoured the contact for a few seconds before he processed the pattern of John’s breathing and realised that John was awake. Sherlock tensed, opened his eyes and looked at John.

“You’re up,” John commented, stating the obvious. Sherlock didn’t bother correcting him.

“Yes.”

“Good morning,” John said, his tone affectionate. He made a vague gesture at their tangled forms. “I hope I’ve been a satisfactory body pillow.”

Sherlock felt his cheeks warm and hoped it was less noticeable than it felt. “Too hard,” he grumbled. “Bony.”

John’s chuckle reverberated through his entire body, around which Sherlock still had his arms—he was warring against himself, caught between detaching himself immediately (safest course of action) and giving in to the pleasant solidity of the contact. Reason inevitably won, as it always did, for Sherlock, although it took a while, during which they merely lay there and John seemed miraculously content to be treated as a human-shaped sleeping accessory.

Sherlock pushed himself up so that he was sitting, the duvet pooled over his thighs. “John—get up. We’re going to the arts and crafts store.”

John raised himself on his elbows. “Why?”

“I need yarn.”

▶▶

A month into their strange arrangement, and Sherlock was beginning to believe that this—what he had with John—could last. Sherlock had got rid of the ruined mattress, but he hadn’t since mentioned obtaining a new one, and neither had John. On the nights Sherlock deigned to sleep, he did so in John’s bed; neither of them questioned it aloud. When Sherlock sometimes shot awake in the dead of the night, momentarily distraught from unpleasant REM brain activities, John would be there, somehow always awake at the right time, and would pull Sherlock close and murmur unscientific things that Sherlock shouldn’t find comforting but did anyway. In the mornings they woke more often touching than not—legs pressed together, a hand flung over an arm or a chest. All was well.

▶

On the thirty-seventh day since the first time Sherlock had slept in John’s bed (it was the eleventh time Sherlock decided to sleep), he woke up wrapped over John like a koala. John’s back was turned towards him, and in the course of the night, Sherlock’s limbs had very naturally draped themselves upon John’s body. With each breath he took, Sherlock noted the scent of John—cheap store-brand citrus-scented shampoo bought on sale, laundry detergent mixed with body wash (also purchased on sale) and the faint traces of what could only be termed _John-smell_ (sweat during sleep, skin oils, food from last night’s dinner). With each breath John took, Sherlock could feel John’s entire frame shift, pressed up against him as he was. He could be content staying like this, Sherlock thought, unbidden.

A little more than seven minutes later, Sherlock catalogued the shift in John’s breathing into wakefulness. He pretended he hadn’t.

When John said “G’morning” in his morning murmur, Sherlock responded with an indistinct “Mm,” his heart running away in his chest as he hoped that John wouldn’t move, wouldn’t ask him to move—would allow them to stay like this, just a little while longer.

John allowed Sherlock exactly one minute and eighteen seconds of the status quo, seeming to be satisfied trapped under Sherlock’s wayward limbs—and then John shifted.

They both froze as John’s buttocks brushed against Sherlock’s crotch; John at the unmistakable hardness now prodding his inner thigh, Sherlock at the dangerous zap of pleasure from the movement.

 _Stupid, stupid,_ stupid, Sherlock berated himself mentally, feeling warmth rush to his face and glad that at least John wasn’t facing him. He should have noticed it—it was his own body, damn it. He should have _noticed._

Mortified, Sherlock disengaged himself from John as speedily as possible, rolling onto his other side so he wouldn’t have to meet John’s eyes if John turned. Curling up into himself.

“Sherlock,” John said, his tone careful and with an undercurrent of something Sherlock couldn’t identify.

“I—apologise,” Sherlock said stiffly.

The bed dipped and sheets rustled as John turned to face Sherlock’s back. “There’s no need for that, Sherlock. It’s normal.” He sounded mildly amused.

“Yes. Biology.”

“Biology,” John agreed, though Sherlock heard the smile in his voice. Then, obviously hesitant, John said, “So, um—I can leave if you want to, you know. Take care of it.”

“No!” Sherlock protested—too forcefully. He drew the duvet up over his ear and huddled.

“No?” John echoed. Then, with unexpected deviousness and his voice slightly lowered, he asked, “Would you rather I _stay_ while you do it?”

“What? _No._ No, that’s not what I—I don’t—” Sherlock promptly shut up. There was no point in talking if he was merely going to seem a blabbering fool.

John laughed under his breath. Not in a ridiculing way, which relieved Sherlock. “Hey,” he said, strangely gentle. “You ok?”

Finally, Sherlock flounced back around to face John, then took in a sharp, startled breath when he found John’s face to be much closer than he’d estimated. Their noses were touching. John’s eyes were beautiful. They could be kissi—“Are you not disturbed?” Sherlock blurted, cutting off his unruly thoughts.

John blinked. “Disturbed? What for?”

Sherlock made a general gesture with his hands still underneath the duvet. “With—all this!” _No—stop talking stop talking stop_ talking—“This! Us—sharing a bed and everything!”

John opened his mouth and seemed about to make some sort of rebuttal, but Sherlock plundered on.

“And now _this._ You don’t—you’ve always said that—” Sherlock swallowed. “Whenever anyone mentioned it, you were always so _adamant._ ” _What are you_ saying _?_ “You’re—”

And Sherlock’s words drowned in the press of John’s mouth on his: warm, soft, insistent. John’s eyes were resolutely open, and Sherlock was helplessly lost in their depths as their lips nudged against each other. His heart skittered frantically, and the tightness in his pants grew ever more acute. Sherlock ached.

When John pulled back, Sherlock said, “I don’t understand.”

John let out a slightly out-of-breath huff of laughter. “That’s new.”

Sherlock frowned. “No, I— _explain_ it to me, John. I can’t—I don’t—”

“I suppose that makes for two of us,” John said, “because I’m not sure I quite comprehend it—this—either.”

“But you’re not—”

“Gay?” John finished.

Sherlock nodded.

“No,” John affirmed, “not gay. Obviously.”

Sherlock’s chest clenched, painful in the way the world sometimes felt when he woke up after a particularly mind-numbing high, his head drumming with noises too loud to understand and his eyes burning from tears or too little blinking, only to realise that he was out of stock and once again stranded in a reality that suited him not.

John must have read his discomfort in his face; his eyes widened a fraction and he reached out to place a hand on Sherlock’s cheek—trembling, Sherlock noticed with a pang—keeping Sherlock’s eyes on his.

“Sherlock, stop—fuck. No, just—listen to me before you jump to any conclusions, all right?”

Sherlock swallowed and offered nothing more than a blink as acknowledgement, but of course John got it.

John licked his lips, took a breath and spoke. “So, no—I’m not gay. I’ve dated girls, women. Hell, I _married_ one. Didn’t turn out too well, but, point being, I like women. I find them attractive. I enjoy having sex with them.” John paused, as if sorting for his next words. “Anyway—not gay—but, thing is, I'd never thought I was bisexual, either. I’ve never really found myself… _attracted_ , romantically or physically, to men.” The pressure of John’s hand on Sherlock’s cheek increased minutely, effectively discouraging Sherlock from any attempts at pulling away, turning away, and John’s fingers curled slightly, his thumb smoothing over Sherlock’s skin almost like an afterthought. “But, um. As you know, I did just kiss you. And, well, I don’t know about you, but I, hm—I quite liked it.” John stopped again, halting, and looked at Sherlock, a question in his eyes.

“Go on,” Sherlock urged, voice little more than a whisper.

“Right.” Deep breath. “So. I guess what I’m saying, Sherlock, is that even though I’m not gay and despite the fact that I’m at least ninety percent sure I’m not bisexual, I’m… attracted to you.”

“In what way?”

John turned his gaze upwards, huffing out a breath. “God, um—how about just, everything?”

“‘Everything’ is not a way of doing something, John.”

“Oh, shut up.” John met Sherlock’s gaze once more, the faintest of flushes adorning his face (it was rather endearing, Sherlock found himself thinking). He seemed to steel himself before continuing. “Your—mind. Body. So, ah, romantically and physically, and—how should I put this?—intellectually? That’s not quite it. But, um—I love watching you work; it’s amazing, and brilliant. _You_ ’re brilliant.”

“… Oh,” Sherlock managed. His heart felt caught in his throat, and he wasn’t quite sure if he could trust his ears.

John’s uncertainty quickly turned to incredulity at Sherlock’s inarticulateness. “‘Oh’?” he echoed, indignant. “Is that all you’ve to say, Sherlock? I’ve just poured my heart out, here.”

“I—thank you, John. I’m—glad. That you feel this way, for me. I, um.” Sherlock hesitated. “That is, I mean to say—I rather enjoyed the kiss, as well. And I think I’d like to—do it again. If that’s amenable to you?” It came out like a question, uncertain and vulnerable and yet—and yet Sherlock was less afraid than he ought to be, because this was John and he couldn’t imagine John hurting him deliberately; moreover, if John ever wished to hurt him, Sherlock would receive it all too voluntarily— _that_ was slightly troubling.

But talk of hurt aside, John was smiling. Smiling, like he found Sherlock interesting and likable and _kissable._ Like Sherlock had just said something very, very _good._ Like John was, somehow, deriving from Sherlock joy and mirth and something Sherlock thought was what most people called _love_.

They kissed, and it was more than agreeable. Lips were parted and tongues touched and pushed and explored, and Sherlock did not mention germs or morning breath. His hands attached themselves to John’s shoulders and wrinkled John’s shirt in their grips. John’s fingers were buried in Sherlock’s hair, their pads pressing pleasantly into his scalp. They were both breathless when the kiss ended; flushed, too. It was a pleasing warmth.

“Sherlock?” John whispered. “Do you, uh, maybe still want help with—that?”

They had drawn closer towards each other while kissing, and with no little embarrassment Sherlock realised that his erection was once again pressed along John’s thigh. His face heated. He averted his gaze and, before he could think too much, buried his face in John’s shoulder where it met John’s neck.

He felt John kiss his hair. John took his hand, guided it lower. “If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one,” John said, laughter in his voice, as he settled Sherlock’s hand over his own (clothed, Sherlock thought it important to note) erection and gave an encouraging press. Sherlock’s fingers automatically curled around the protuberance. _John’s penis—_ he was touching John’s penis. Sherlock gulped, pressing his lips into the bared skin of John’s shoulder. Gave an experimental squeeze of his fingers.

John’s breath caught, the hitch intimately audible in their position. “God—Sherlock,” he murmured.

Sherlock twisted his hand, adjusted the angle, the pressure, collecting data as he went—the pattern of John’s gasps and pants, the rate of change of John’s heartbeats, the pitch and amplitude and length of John’s groans, the way John’s muscles shifted—

_Oh._

John’s fingers were teasing at the tip of Sherlock’s cock, flirting with touch and sensation. Sherlock bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to hurt, but a small whine still escaped him.

“Ok?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock responded. (At least his voice was mostly steady.)

“Sherlock?” John said, the words followed by a soft groan as Sherlock’s forefinger ran a decisive stroke up John’s length. “Could we perhaps, ah—do away with all the— _oh_ —the fabric?”

Sherlock didn’t answer aloud, merely dipped his fingers questioningly into the waistlines of John’s pyjama pants and underwear. In response, John lifted his hips to allow Sherlock to push it down enough to free his cock. When Sherlock’s fingers return to where they’d been and resumed doing things they’d been doing, this time without the cloth barrier, John loosed a low, satisfied moan; Sherlock could feel its vibrations through John’s chest, against which his own is pressed.

“You, now,” John urged, fingers tugging at Sherlock’s pants. Sherlock complied.

The skin-on-skin contact was exquisite. Sherlock thought he could feel the texture of John’s hand—calluses, the inside of his knuckles, the lines of his palms. “ _John,_ ” he breathed.

“Yeah? Fuck—I want to kiss you, Sherlock,” John whispered, his breaths caressing the shell of Sherlock’s ear.

Sherlock compliantly removed his head from its position on John’s shoulder, meeting John’s eyes for the first time since their bout of mutual masturbation had been proposed and begun. John’s eyes were intriguing: dark with emotion and heavy-lidded with desire. His hair was tousled from sleep, and his lips were parted. They stared at each other for a moment, their fingers stilling temporarily as they regarded each other. Then John’s mouth curved and Sherlock’s own couldn’t help but reciprocate a tentative smile, and their lips met and their fingers picked up their pace once more. They gasped and panted and made sex noises into and against each other’s mouth, and when John brought their cocks together— _the most sensitive parts of our anatomies are brushing against one another,_ Sherlock marvelled—it wasn’t long before their toes were curling and their spines were arching and liquid warmth was spilling between their bodies.

▼

After their breathing had steadied, they lay curled into each other, a sticky (drying) mess between them. Their fingers were linked between them, and their breaths shared a common rhythm. Sherlock was supposed to have shown up at the NSY half an hour ago, but sod Lestrade; Sherlock had priorities, and one of them— _the_ priority—was John.

“Good morning,” Sherlock whispered.

John let burst a small laugh. “That’s a bit delayed, don’t you think?”

▶

Things did not change too much, after that. They hunted criminals in the nooks and crannies of London, celebrated with Asian takeaway, laughed and bickered. Sherlock continued to be a difficult flatmate, and John continued to be an overly forgiving one.

They didn’t speak of that morning, in the days that followed, but John came to drop affectionate touches here and there: running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, adjusting Sherlock’s scarf (when there was no need), brushing his hand over Sherlock’s when they passed objects to each other. There were chaste kisses in those mornings on which Sherlock woke alongside John—the doctor would press his lips to Sherlock’s forehead or cheek or mouth before sliding off the bed that they still shared.

A mutual confession had been made, they both knew, and a line had been crossed, somewhere. Sherlock would like to cross it again.

▶▶

“John! Are you _mad?_ A bomb has just gone off in there, and there are at least two more where that’s from—undetonated! You’re _not_ going back in,” Sherlock hissed.

“There are fucking _children_ trapped in there, Sherlock! We saw them. We were _talking_ to them less than half an hour ago—we can’t just _leave them in there,_ ” John shot back, vehement.

“You can’t go in, John,” Sherlock replied flatly.

“I damn well can! I’m not letting them get blown into piles of ruptured organs, Sherlock. I _can’t._ ” John pried Sherlock’s fingers from where they dug into his elbow. “I’m _going_ —”

“No,” Sherlock said. “I’ll go. You, John—you _stay._ ” He pushed down on John’s shoulders firmly, as if planting him into the ground.

John turned his eyes on Sherlock: surprise, horror, worry, confusion. “But—”

“I’ve disarmed bombs before, John. I’ve extensive knowledge on them. So _I_ shall go and get the children.” Sherlock levelled one last hard look at John and swirled around, striding into the flame-spitting building.

▼

As much as Sherlock enjoyed the stimulation brought about by danger-induced catecholamines, Sherlock despised the thought of John in danger. Therefore, he was nothing short of furious when John not only did not listen and stay outside but rather entered the fire-licked building and was now slightly _on fire._

Sherlock was carrying a four-year-old boy in his arm and a nine-year-old girl was grasping the fingers of his other hand. There were cuts on their faces and hands, and parts of their skin were red and blistered. The girl sported one bad knee and was stumbling effortfully along; the boy was plagued by residual sniffles (Sherlock suspected damaged lungs from the sound). Sherlock had had to break down a door from where it’d been stuck in its frame to get to them, and his own hands were rather battered. He was beginning to feel the effects of the carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide (dizziness, headache, difficulty in breathing), but Sherlock knew he could get out just fine—if for no other reason than that he could stop time.

But _John_ —John was picking his way stubbornly through gaps in the debris and flames, his face illuminated by the harsh dance of the firelight, his eyes mirrors to the deadly, chemical flames. Sherlock let out a curse under his breath, suddenly anxious, because this was _John_ staggering through a burning, bomb-ridden building, the cuffs of his trousers catching fire here and there before being frantically shaken out. This was _John_ in a situation where death was an extremely real possibility, and Sherlock did not like it at all.

He all but dragged the girl as he went towards John, unheeding of the difficulties of her short legs and damaged knee tripping to keep up the pace; the only thing on the forefront of his mind was John—had been, would be.

“Sherlock!” John shouted as a piece of what had once been the lobby ceiling fell to the floor, carrying some sort of inflammables that immediately gave rise to a new wall of red-orange flames. “Over here—quick!”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here, John?” Sherlock growled as he made his way through precarious apertures from the flames. “I thought I told you to _stay outside._ ”

John seemed to be briefly taken aback by the vehemence in Sherlock’s demeanour, but he pointedly ignored it and reached down to pick the nine-year-old up. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Sherlock nodded angrily, and they fumbled their way through yet more broken-down building materials, dodging sudden bursts of flames every few half-minutes. Sherlock’s heart stopped (to borrow the sensationalist figure of speech) whenever John lurched before righting himself—rationally, Sherlock understood that John was most probably more experienced in situations similar to this one, but that knowledge did little to assuage the tension in his mind.

John let out a string of expletives beside Sherlock. The entrance from which they had entered had been blocked by a large burning piece of plaster. Sherlock scanned around them, subtracting the flickering flames from his vision, recalling the floor plan of the building.

“This way,” he said, gesturing to the left with an arm while ignoring the burn in his throat as his vocal cords laboured to vibrate.

John met his eyes with a nod, and Sherlock’s throat parched at the absolute certainty— _trust_ —in John’s gaze. No questions asked. No doubts expressed. No words necessary. John understood; Sherlock thought he knew why John had come in after him, despite Sherlock having expressly forbidden him from doing so. _He’d follow me_ anywhere; the thought stole Sherlock’s breath—or maybe that was all the gaseous toxicity.

And then he heard it, felt it: the faint vibration in the air around them, the instant of oppressing pressure that signified a detonation. Close. _Too close—_

Sherlock did the only thing he could.

▶◀

Silence. That’s what an instant sounds like. Layered upon each other and browsed successively, instants come with audio. Alone, a moment is uncannily quiet.

The only “sound” (or is it a sound, really?) that Sherlock can hear in these frozen intervals of non-time is his own heart, repeating its last contraction over and over; it’s the only reason he’s not frozen stiff like the rest of the world—his body is a vessel carrying the passage of time into one fixed instant. If Sherlock speaks, he can hear his own voice only through the lower-frequency vibrations brought about by his vocal cords inside his skull: it’s a deeper, slightly sombre, muffled sound.

Sherlock conducted a circumspection of his surroundings. Pieces of splintered wood and plasterboards are littered amongst the shrubs of flames, and the floor glimmers with shards of broken glass from a nearby mirror. A wrought-iron balustrade has been knocked from its original position along the edge of a now-collapsed stairwell. The mouth of the boy in Sherlock’s arm is half ajar in a desperate, painful bid for breath, his eyes squinted to mere slits. The girl John is carrying has her eyes wide open in obvious terror. John’s face is grim but hard with resolve, smeared with sweat and soot, strands of his hair sticking to his forehead. There are blisters and abrasions on his hands, which he must have used to make his way to where he found Sherlock.

Sherlock looks between the children and John. He steels himself and manoeuvres one of John’s arms around his shoulder, leaning John’s weight onto his body. Still holding the boy, Sherlock proceeds laboriously to drag the three of them towards the side entrance.

The combined weight is substantial, and Sherlock’s progress feels ridiculously slow, in whatever sense the word means in an absence of time’s passage. When he finally deposits the three of them in a pile on the ground a sufficient distance from the imminent explosion, Sherlock’s head pounds in dissonance with his pulse, and he feels inexplicably tired.

▶◀

Time snapped back in pace. There was a dull crack as the building they’d been in just a moment ago exploded. Sherlock felt at once nauseated and ravenous. Worn out. He was dizzy and his mouth tasted of the iron of his blood. His lungs felt assaulted by air, and his eyes were stinging.

On the ground, John was pushing himself up, appearing extremely confused. Sherlock couldn’t blame him—to John, one moment they had been in the middle of a burning lobby of a building rigged with explosives, and the next they were outside, well out of the way of the bomb’s effective range. (Sherlock knew how disorienting it could be. On one of the rare occasions Mycroft employed his ability alone and not together with Sherlock, he had displaced Sherlock from where he’d been peering into an electron microscope, focused on an experiment, to the basement of their house, and Sherlock had felt as if his world had changed within the span of a blink—because it had.)

“We—what happened?” John asked, his voice coarse and beyond bewildered.

“Explosion,” Sherlock replied vaguely.

Beside John, the boy and girl seemed just as confounded, but they voiced no questions and simply sat huddled together. The boy was wheezing as he cried; the girl’s eyes were red-rimmed but resolute as she wrapped her brother in a fierce, protective embrace.

John rubbed at his temple. “ _Bloody hell._ But how—we were _just in there_. When—how did we get _here_?”

Sherlock tensed. “What are you talking about?” he asked tightly.

“I—god, I swear, it felt like one moment we were in there surrounded by flames and burning shit and the next—we’re somehow _here._ ” John rubbed at his face. “Must got something to do with the adrenaline.”

“Or the toxicity of the smoke,” Sherlock supplied.

John still looked troubled, but he nodded. “Or that.”

▶

“Brother dear,” Mycroft said, sitting in Sherlock’s armchair as Sherlock lounged on the sofa, putting on his most convincing air of nonchalance. Mycroft’s tone was icy—cold, biting, _furious_. “Sherlock. _Are you quite out of your mad mind?_ ”

Sherlock met his brother’s gaze with languid eyes. “I am quite well.”

“What were you _thinking?_ ” Mycroft hissed. “I’ve told you, over and over again, that you _cannot_ abuse your ability like that. _Why do you not listen to me?_ ”

“It’s hardly _abuse_ , Mycroft,” Sherlock replied. Then he sat up and, more seriously, said, “Besides, it was _necessary._ I would have died otherwise.”

“Yes, I acknowledge that stopping time was necessary under the circumstances, but you did not have to keep time frozen for that long—”

“‘Long’? I held it frozen for but an instant, Mycroft,” Sherlock quipped with forced levity.

“You know my meaning, brother. You also knew better— _should have known_ better—than to do what you did. Your timeline cannot withstand this, Sherlock. You’ll—”

“Unravel,” Sherlock finished, cross. “Yes, yes—I know all this. But what would you have had me _do,_ Mycroft? Get myself out and just leave the three of them there to be blasted into smithereens?”

Sherlock saw in Mycroft’s expression that that was exactly what he would have suggested.

“I can’t, Mycroft,” Sherlock almost spat out. “I _can’t_.”

Mycroft closed his eyes and Sherlock watched him breathe. Finally, Mycroft said, “This is why I’ve always told you that caring is not an advantage.”

“But it’s worth it,” Sherlock responded.

“Is it, really?” Mycroft retorted. “Is John Watson worth being stranded in an instant, in _nothingness,_ forever? Is John Watson worth so much to you that you would subject yourself to eternity without him, while he lived out the rest of his life with a ‘you’ that you’ll never get to be, oblivious to what you’ve done and wherewhen you’re trapped?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, hating how his voice wobbled but knowing that he meant what he said.

“You can’t possibly imagine what eternity is like, Sherlock.”

“Neither can you.”

“It’ll drive you insane.”

“Some would argue I already am.”

“ _Sherlock,_ dear brother. I would rather not lose you,” Mycroft said.

“But you wouldn’t,” Sherlock pointed out. “You’d be like John and everyone else, oblivious. Time goes on after the instant. If I were stranded in non-time, an eternity for me would only be an instant to everyone else.” He paused, then added, “Of course, I’m not saying I _want_ to be trapped in time.”

Mycroft regarded Sherlock without speaking for a long minute. Then he sighed (a low, weary sound) and pushed himself up so that he was standing. “I must go,” he said. “I do wish you would heed my words and reconsider your choices. Nothing is worth forever, Sherlock.” Sherlock listened to Mycroft’s footsteps as he headed for the door.

“You don’t know that,” Sherlock said.

“I—” Mycroft began, but then his steps abruptly halted. “Doctor Watson.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened and he sat up so swiftly that he knocked the sole of his foot on the coffee table. He scrambled to the doorway. Swallowed. “John,” he said, voice tight.

“Explain,” John said, equally tightly. His expression told Sherlock that he’d heard enough (if not all) of the conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft.

“I’ll leave you two to it, then,” Mycroft said, and took his leave.

▼

“But Sherlock,” John said, “I don’t want you to do that for me.”

“Well,” Sherlock drawled, scowling, “it’s not really your choice, is it, now?”

John glared at Sherlock, brows furrowed and exasperated in that way he only ever was with Sherlock. Sherlock’s chest hurt.

When Mycroft had strode out of 221B, he’d left John and Sherlock standing in terse, uncertain silence. Sherlock had only dared steal glances at John’s face, never directly meeting John’s eyes. John’s expression was a strange, piercing blend of confusion, disbelief, fear and anger, and Sherlock had no idea what to do. Eventually, he’d said, “We ought to sit.” Wordlessly, John had followed.

Now, John’s eyes made it clear that part of him wanted to throttle Sherlock. Another part of him seemed pained. “ _Sherlock,_ ” he said, and when his voice broke, Sherlock’s breath caught. “You can’t just— _decide_ to do something so—so _monumental_ for me without asking me if I wanted it.”

“I don’t see the problem, John. It’s _my_ ability. I can do whatever I want with it.”

“Mycroft—he said you’d be— _stranded_ in time forever.”

“Mm.”

“Sherlock!”

“ _What?_ ”

“Why do you always _do_ this?”

“‘This,’ what?”

“This! This—helping me, saving me, keeping me alive—at your own expense—all without telling me!”

“Oh, that’s hardly what I—”

“It’s _exactly_ what you’ve been doing, Sherlock! Jumping off St. Bart’s, allowing yourself to be shot by Mary and now _this!_ ”

Sherlock stared at his own hands, stiff. “What do you want me to say, John?”

“I don’t _know!_ ” John said. “I don’t—Sherlock, I can’t—Mycroft’s got a point, for once: I’m not _worth_ all that.”

“ _Fuck_ Mycroft,” Sherlock spat.

John rubbed a hand over his face. “Just—at least tell me _why_.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment, before he sucked in a sharp breath in an attempt to steer brace himself. “Honestly, John,” he said, infusing his voice with affected condescension, “I’m sure you can figure this out yourself. You’re not _that_ stupid.”

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s upper and lower teeth grated together as he ground them past each other. Finally—“ _Fine!_ You want to make me say it, so I’ll say it! I do _this_ —I do all of it—because you’re _important._ Happy, John? _You’re important to me._ I only make an effort to be _good_ because it makes your lips curve and your eyes bright. I find your eyes fascinating. The idea of you dying scares me, when you cry it makes my chest tight, I like your laugh, I want you to smile all the time and be _happy_ , whatever that even _means_. And sometimes I hate it too—this irrational _altruism._ But I can’t turn it off. It doesn’t _work,_ and frankly, I don’t particularly _want_ it to work. I like you breathing and alive and I’ll never fail to be relieved that I have the ability to keep you that way, and I’ll never regret having done any part I could to keep you that way.” Sherlock paused, closed his eyes and reopened them, forcing himself to stare directly at John. “You’re the romantic, John. I suppose you’d call this being in love.”

Both of them were breathing raggedly at this point, and Sherlock could see the sheen of moisture in John’s eyes—the unshed tears tugged at Sherlock’s heart, and he bit down on his lip.

Finally, John took in a turbulent breath and spoke. “That’s not being in love, Sherlock,” he said, sounding both pained and awed. “That’s _loving._ ”

Sherlock swallowed, lips pursed. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” John whispered.

“Your gratitude is unwarranted. You know I only ever do things for selfish reasons.”

John let out a bark of laughter. “You’re basically saying that you do selfless things because you’re selfish.”

“That means that the things I do only _appear_ selfless.”

“At this point, I’m not sure there’s a difference,” John said. Then he straightened and seemed to remember the more important (less pleasant) topic. “Sherlock.”

“What is it, now?”

“I don’t want you to keep using your ability.”

Sherlock sighed. “You don’t get to decide that, John.”

“I do if you’re using it for me,” John retorted. “And I know it’s more than just this once, else Mycroft wouldn’t have been all—all _pleading._ ”

Sherlock’s heart ached. “I told you, John—I don’t do it for _you._ I do it for myself. So you have absolutely no reason to feel _guilty_ or otherwise indebted—”

“Bloody _hell,_ Sherlock! You—that’s not why at all!” John half-shouted. Then, his voice impossibly softer, he continued, “It’s not—it’s not because I feel somehow _beholden_ to you or that I’m, what, burdened by your affections. God, Sherlock, I would be offended that you’d even think that if I’m not so busy blaming myself for having _made_ you think that. Listen to me, Sherlock, I want you to stop using your ability, but it’s _not_ because I feel _guilty_ or because I’m troubled by it, because no—I’m really not. I’m very touched.” John hesitated, and the sincerity in his eyes prickled Sherlock’s skin (not unpleasantly).

“That’s… good,” Sherlock said carefully.

“I want you to stop because it’s—bad for you,” John said, then huffed self-deprecatingly. “God, that came out condescending. But, Sherlock—you’ve said it already, it’s high time I said it too— _you_ are important to _me_. You mean more to me than anything—anyone—I’ve ever cared about. You seem to think I’m here only for the adrenaline, the excitement, because I miss the army or some other such reason, and that’s not _it_. Sherlock, I meant what I said—you’re brilliant, utterly amazing, and I’m attracted to you. I suppose I forgot to make it clear just _how deep_ that sentiment runs.” John reached for Sherlock’s hand, and when he spoke the next words, his eyes never once strayed from Sherlock’s—“I love you, Sherlock.”

“And it’s not just that you provide excitement to my dull, pitiful ex-military life, or that you can deduce the life story of a stranger in thirty seconds flat. I love you both despite and because of the way you are. Your mind, your eyes, your voice, your dedication—you’ve no idea how magnificent you look when you’re completely focused, Sherlock. And those rare, rare smiles you save only for the strangest, most unexpected but somehow, sometimes, the most terribly _appropriate_ occasions. Whenever you direct them at me, it makes me feel—special, _privileged_ , because you’re trusting me enough to let me in on them”—John’s voice cracked—“I hate that I hurt you, Sherlock, and I hate that you’re hurting yourself for my sake—”

“I’m not _hurting_ myself,” Sherlock managed, and his throat was suddenly, spectacularly dry, and when he spoke his voice was rough and shaky and _vulnerable_. “John, I—you—”

“ _Please,_ Sherlock,” John said, “I can’t bear the thought of you stranded somewhere, by yourself, forever.”

“Some _when,_ ” Sherlock corrected dutifully. Then he yanked on John’s hand and pulled John close and prevented John from speaking with his mouth. Sherlock kissed deliberately, because he hadn’t imagined that he could ever have this, and because he couldn’t give John the answer he was asking for.

But when they parted, John’s eyes were resolute and Sherlock knew that he hadn’t forgotten their unfinished conversation.

“Some _when,_ ” John repeated, slightly breathless. “Right. Sherlock, promise me you’ll stop doing this—pausing time thing.”

Sherlock stared right back at John. “No.” John sucked in and expelled an exasperated breath, but before he could say anything, Sherlock continued. “But I’ll… be less reckless. We can be more careful.”

“Sherlock—”

“No, John, this is the best I can offer,” Sherlock said, “and I think you’d rather I not lie to you.”

John’s face told Sherlock that he understood; he didn’t like it, not at all, but he understood. When John leaned forward and brought their lips together once more, the kiss was clumsy and emotional, and when Sherlock tasted the salt and bitter of a tear, he didn’t allow himself to wonder whose it was.

Mycroft was wrong—the concept of worth was subjective, and John was worth beyond forever to Sherlock.

▼

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Sherlock mused once the kissing had been suspended.

“The door wasn’t closed fully,” John said. “And then I heard you and Mycroft talking, so naturally I kept quiet.”

Sherlock cursed his brother silently. “Mycroft must have left the door ajar deliberately. He wanted you to hear.”

“Sounds like something he’d do,” John voiced his assent. He shot Sherlock a look. “But I’m thankful he did.”

“I’m not,” Sherlock muttered.

They were both quiet, Sherlock’s head on John’s shoulder. Then John asked, “When you jumped from Barts, you stopped time, didn’t you?”

“Excellent deduction, John.” And Sherlock told him (most of it).

▶▶

Sherlock decidedly did not appreciate saris.

It wasn’t that he disliked them; they were perfectly functional articles of clothing. Rather, it was simply that he felt no particular fondness for this particular outfit he was currently in the process of assembling over himself. The six and a half metres of gota patti navy blue Banarasi silk felt droopy and insecure draped over his body, even though Sherlock had studied diagrams and read through seventeen different how-to guides on donning a sari (he’d compiled a master-manual, too), and he was certain that he’d correctly calculated the number and widths of pleats specifically to allow for maximum ease of movement and accommodation of hidden weapons and a UV torch. In addition, he had more than secured the flaps of fabric with plenty of safety pins—or, he thought he had done. It wasn’t turning out as ideally as he’d expected.

Nor was the assemblage of the physical garment the only problem with this disguise. The makeup had been simple enough—a matter of altering his skin tone, sculpting his face for ethnically convincing features, attaching fake eyelashes and dusting on shadows and blush—and so had the crossdressing—silicone breast forms, a waist cincher, hip padding, a gaff, skilful contouring and shaving. But the sari, wrapped as it was in a way that (theoretically) permitted easy movement, was _restricting_ (compared to trousers, at any rate) even as it felt loose over his figure. The precariousness of its arrangement vexed Sherlock: how would he run, jump or climb without everything falling apart? (Of course, the best possible outcome would involve nothing more than holding a knife to a throat, but one could never rely on such simplistic ideals.)

Sherlock scowled at his reflection in the mirror before pulling back and putting on a wig, the hairstyle of which he’d already done up. Earrings, bangles, bindi—check. One final survey of the image in the mirror and a few wary, experimental tugs on the sari, and Sherlock deemed the disguise satisfactory.

▼

When he arrived back at 221B, John did not immediately recognise Sherlock, who was sitting up properly (with his spine held straight and his hands folded on his lap) in his chair.

“Oh—hello. Are you, um, waiting for Sherlock?” John asked, shooting Sherlock a courteous smile.

“No, John,” Sherlock said, his voice higher than its usual pitch. “I’m waiting for _you._ ”

“Me?” John said, his brows raised in surprise and confusion. John looked around, and Sherlock could practically hear John wonder where he was. “Oh. Well—is there anything I can help you with?” John asked, returning his gaze to Sherlock.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “Go get dressed—I’ve left the suit on your bed—you’re attending a wedding with me.”

Sherlock took great enjoyment observing the moment John realised who he was talking to.

“I— _Sherlock?_ What the hell?” John sputtered. “You— _what?_ ”

Sherlock bit back a smile with debatable success. “I said, we’re going to a wedding.”

“Yeah, I heard _that,_ but—what? Why? _Right now?_ ” John squinted at Sherlock’s outfit. “And why are you in a bloody _sari?_ ”

“Obviously because it’s an Indian wedding, John,” Sherlock drawled. “And the reception starts at seven, so you’ve got an hour and twenty-two minutes until we’ve to leave.”

“Christ, Sherlock. Since when were we invited to an Indian wedding?” John demanded.

“Six days ago.”

John made a strangled sound. “And you didn’t think to tell me earlier?”

“There was no need, John,” Sherlock said reasonably. “I hadn’t been sure we’d be going until this morning.”

“And _why_ are we going?”

“For a case, John,” Sherlock chided. “Why else?”

And John—wonderful, fantastic John—stared a Sherlock for all but two seconds before his mouth reconfigured into a smile, and Sherlock couldn’t help but reciprocate.

▼

“So tell me about this case,” John requested as he entered the living room in the dark grey Bandhgala-style suit Sherlock had left for him, adjusting his collar.

“Have you ever heard of the Hope Diamond?” Sherlock asked, using his normal voice.

“Yes, I think so. Sounds familiar.”

Sherlock leaned in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “It’s been stolen.”

John lifted a brow. “How have I not heard about this?”

“Of course you haven’t,” Sherlock scoffed. “It’s not like the Smithsonian is going to broadcast their own failure.”

“Right,” John agreed. “And what does this wedding have to do with the missing diamond?”

“The wedding photos,” Sherlock announced. He pointed at the colour prints splayed over the coffee table. “Look at the bride’s jhumkas—earrings, that is. Crafty, I suppose, to camouflage it in the considerable size and elaborate design of Indian style earrings.” Sherlock smiled. “But too risky, really—they must not have been thinking enough.”

“Why take pictures wearing them in the first place, though?” John asked.

“Oh, John, it’s _easy,_ ” Sherlock scolded. “A seller has to show potential buyers what’s being auctioned.”

John took a seat beside Sherlock on the sofa. (The proximity was pleasant.) “The bride, then?”

“No,” Sherlock said. “I doubt she knows the value of her own jewellery.”

“Hmm,” John replied. “All right.”

Sherlock raked his gaze critically over John, huffed slightly, produced a comb from a pocket fold he’d pleated into his sari ensemble and tamed a few unruly tufts of John’s hair. Just as he was pulling his hand back, John grabbed his forearm and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist. Sherlock indulged himself for a moment before he firmly detached John’s mouth from his skin. “The makeup is waterproof, John, not foolproof,” he said.

John grinned—“Good thing I’m not a fool, isn’t it?”—and kissed Sherlock on the lips instead.

When they parted, Sherlock cocked his head to the side and asked, slowly, “Are you attracted to me like this, John?”

John blinked. “‘This’?”

Sherlock gestured vaguely at his disguise. “This—female thing.”

John huffed a laugh. Said, “Yes, I’m attracted to you and I would love to spend the rest of the evening snogging you here on the sofa. But no, it’s not because of the ‘female thing’—it’s because it’s _you._ ”

Sherlock blinked and swallowed. “I see,” he said.

“Good,” John answered, smiled and pressed a final dry, close-lipped kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth before pulling back and settling into the sofa cushions. “So, what, we’re just going to steal into the wedding and take the earrings?”

“Of course that’s not all we’re going to do,” Sherlock said. “We’re going to have _fun._ ”

▼

This wedding was poles apart from the previous one Sherlock attended, and it wasn’t simply the differences in cultures, though those were numerous.

Sherlock’s heart didn’t hurt, his eyes didn’t burn and his fingers weren’t digging into the flesh of his own palm. John’s presence beside him added grains of authenticity to the urbane smile he wore on his face.

They were sitting in a table a sizeable distance from the mandap, inconspicuous amidst the throng of women in saris and lehengas and men in traditional kurtas as well as other, more Western styles of attire. There was a strange, bubbly feeling in Sherlock, knowing that the guests all around them took them to be a typical couple (sure, people had been thinking that they were _involved_ since the beginning, but this was different), and the pressure of John’s slightly possessive hand over his on the table, their fingers slightly tangled, sent welcome tendrils of warmth through Sherlock.

John gave his hand a light squeeze, having noticed his stare at their overlapping hands. “You fine?” John asked softly.

Sherlock did his best to tuck away all the _sentiment._ “Why wouldn’t I be?” he retorted. He felt John peer at him curiously, and tried not to fidget.

“You looked thoughtful,” John mused.

“That’s because I _think_ , unlike the majority of the human race,” Sherlock quipped.

“Oi,” John said, “that’s not nice.”

“‘Nice’ is a meaningless social construct,” Sherlock said.

“No,” John said. “ _Nice_ is what it is when you smile at me and I feel all fuzzy inside.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at that and said, wryly, “Don’t be _soppy_ , John.”

John’s smile turned a little bit wicked, and Sherlock felt a trickle of thrill through his veins as John leaned in by Sherlock’s ear and said in a barely audible voice, “ _Nice_ is also the sounds you make when you fall apart in bed from my fingers. Hm,” John paused, contemplative, “or on the sofa, I suppose—equally valid.”

Sherlock fought a smile as his toes curled. “In that case, John, I hardly think you’d want me to be _nice_ to everyone.”

▼

The ceremony was, in all, unexpectedly enjoyable. Sherlock scoffed under his breath when the bride almost tripped walking around the agni during Mangal Phera, and John delivered a discreet kick to Sherlock under the table, shooting him a disapproving glare. And as the bride and groom performed the Saptapadi ritual, Sherlock didn’t have to look down at the programme in his hands for the translation to understand the pandit’s recitation of the seven vows in Sanskrit—not that he’d memorised them deliberately; he just happened to know some Sanskrit.

Sherlock had just delivered a spoonful of lemon rice to his mouth when he noticed the small smile playing on John’s lips as he watched Sherlock. Sherlock swallowed, then asked, “What?”

John gave a slight shake of his head. “Nothing. It’s just, you seemed… peaceful.”

“I think,” Sherlock said, “the word you’re looking for is _content._ ”

▼

“Dance?” Sherlock asked, standing with a hand offered out to John.

John hesitated. “I don’t know how.” He gestured at the guests around them, swaying and prancing about in a conglomeration of Bhangra, other folk and modern style dances. All over people were twirling and bumping into each other, their eyes bright and laughing; most didn’t seem to care that their movements weren’t at all in sync with the background music.

“Neither do most of these people,” Sherlock pointed out, voice infused with snark. He continued earnestly, “And I’ll teach you. Again.”

John smiled and placed his hand in Sherlock’s, and Sherlock pulled him smoothly out of his chair.

“Hand on my waist,” Sherlock instructed softly, and John complied wordlessly. “Now just follow along. I hope you haven’t forgotten _everything_ I taught you last time.”

“’Course not,” John said with equal parts fondness, nostalgia and regret. “That whole experience gave me so much internal conflict—you’ve no idea.”

“Mm? Enlighten me,” Sherlock said, spinning gracefully around and pressing his back to John’s chest.

John’s breath was at Sherlock’s ear when he replied. “I almost called off the wedding,” he confessed.

“Oh?”

“Had I not still been pissed at you,” John said, “God help me—I would’ve broken it off, damned all honour to hell and run right back to you.”

Sherlock’s breathing hitched at John’s words, and he felt John clutch him tighter, hold him closer. “Sorry,” Sherlock murmured.

“Ha. As if you haven’t been forgiven—as if I could keep myself from forgiving you.” Step to the side. Sway. “I’m sorry too—for marrying Mary.”

Sherlock gave an approving hum. “Good.”

And it was lovely, Sherlock decided. This, dancing with John Watson in a crowd of people neither of them was familiar with—it was the most agreeable thing he’d done the entire week. He almost wished they weren’t there for a case.

Almost.

▼

Sherlock intercepted the bride on her way to the dressing room after a visit to the loo, having expressed a need to use the toilet himself as an excuse. It was near the end of the reception, and the bride was to change into a final outfit for the night.

“You look beautiful tonight!” Sherlock exclaimed enthusiastically.

The bride obviously did not recognise him, but neither was she alarmed, considering the size of the wedding. “Thank you,” she replied graciously.

Sherlock beamed at her, then allowed his eyes to fall on the earrings. “My god, your jhumkas! They’re absolutely _stunning,_ ” he gushed.

The bride smiled shyly and touched her left earring with her fingers. “Thanks,” she said. “My… husband”—she seemed to delight in saying the word—“picked them out.”

“Well!” Sherlock said. “Tell him he’s got an excellent eye!”

A voice called the bride’s name from down the walkway, and Sherlock gave her a friendly wave before continuing down the direction in which he’d been headed.

As instructed, John was waiting for him outside the restrooms, leaning against one wall with his arms folded over his chest. Catching sight of Sherlock, he pushed himself upright and looked at Sherlock expectantly.

“So what’s the plan?” John enquired.

▼

“Don’t think—you’re s’posed to— _mmph_ —be snogging at someone—else’s wedding,” John said between kisses. He had Sherlock pressed against the wall and they were in the process of very ostentatiously making out.

“No?” Sherlock asked, proceeding to drag John’s lips from his jaw back up to his mouth.

“No,” John affirmed, and sucked teasingly at Sherlock’s bottom lip. John’s hand had somehow managed to slip under Sherlock’s sari without causing the entire outfit to come undone, and Sherlock gasped into John’s mouth as John’s forefinger dipped into his navel.

“Can’t be helped,” Sherlock said, sounding only slightly winded.

They were a fair distance from the entrance to the bride’s dressing room, but in clear view of anyone entering and leaving it. Hiding in plain sight was common knowledge, and the appearance of disinhibition tended to make people overlook one’s importance. (The human mind works in mysterious ways, many of them convenient.)

So when a man in a dark red sherwani slipped out of the door, glanced cautiously around, his gaze briefly catching on Sherlock and John, and strode away with purposeful nonchalance, Sherlock catalogued him perfectly even as he arched his neck to welcome more scandalous ministrations from John’s mouth.

Sherlock put a hand on John’s shoulder.

“Got him?” John asked against Sherlock’s clavicle.

“Youngest brother,” Sherlock whispered back.

“And?”

“I’m following.”

▼

 _Foolish—not the mastermind, then,_ Sherlock thought as the bride’s youngest sibling aimed the sharp tip of a blade at his throat, the sharp, cool metal barely pressing into skin. _His first mistake: hesitation._ Had the man had it in him to kill Sherlock, he would have already done so.

“Who are you?” the man hissed. “Why are you following me?”

_Second mistake: broadcasting his guilt._

“Who are you working with?” Sherlock asked.

The blade shifted, pressing more firmly against Sherlock’s skin—but Sherlock was unconcerned, because rather than slicing his throat open, it was the flat part of the metal that was being pushed into his skin. The man’s hand was trembling slightly. “ _Who are you?_ ” he hissed. In the dark, Sherlock noted the flicker of his eyes down the other end the alley.

Sherlock smiled lazily. “Wrong question.”

The man’s eyes were wide with frustration and terror as he and Sherlock regarded each other tersely. The apparent stalemate was broken by the buzzing of the man’s phone. Sherlock seized the moment of distraction and deftly reversed their positions, knocking the man’s knife from his hand and drawing out his own knife from where he’d fastened it into one of the pleats of his sari. In the same smooth movement, Sherlock slipped out the man’s phone and, knife at the man, asked idly, “Not going to answer?”

The man’s face as pale and he was struggling, desperate. Sherlock thought it was laughable—he wondered how this man had managed to smuggle the diamond all the way from the Smithsonian in the US to London without mishap. “No? I suppose I’ll have to do it for you.”

Sherlock accepted the call and was greeted by a crossly demanding voice. “Six minutes late.”

Sherlock lowered his voice to a similar register to that of the phone’s owner and replied, “On my way.”

▼

What followed were a minor struggle with knives, a fake gun held to Sherlock’s head, a real gun aimed at Sherlock’s chest, a livid client who had coveted the Hope Diamond for at least twenty years (for reasons too dull for Sherlock to interest himself with), the confiscation and examination of two blue jewelled earrings and a matching necklace, a few punches thrown in justifiable self-defence, a bruised jaw, a sari that was beyond salvageable and a frantic John.

All in all, a fairly typical conclusion to a fairly typical case on a fairly typical night.

Back at 221B, Sherlock showered, diligently rinsing away the layer of makeup over his skin. When he emerged from the bathroom, John was ready with the medical kit. Obediently Sherlock sat down and allowed John to dab at the bruise on his face and the few superficial knife scratches he’d sustained during the skirmish with knives.

“Christ, Sherlock. Must you always make me watch you insert yourself into life-threatening situations?” John muttered as he bandaged Sherlock’s forearm.

“They weren’t life-threatening,” Sherlock replied.

John glared. “We agreed you would be more careful.”

“The brother was never going to kill me,” Sherlock argued.

“He held a knife to your throat!” John retorted.

“Theatrics.”

“There’s the gun,” John pointed out.

“A fake.”

“I’m talking about the other one.”

“Well, it was only pointed at me for seven seconds,” Sherlock said. He smiled at John. “I knew you would take care of him.”

John sighed, shook his head, placed a kiss by Sherlock’s temple and stood. “I’m showering.”

▼

When John was done, Sherlock had insinuated himself into John’s bed— _their_ bed by now, really—and was in serious contemplation, his hands steepled in front of his nose. He scooted over slightly to make room for John but didn’t look over.

“What are you thinking?” John asked as he made himself comfortable beside Sherlock and reached for his phone.

“Marriage,” Sherlock replied.

He felt John pause in confusion and surprise (and hope?) before he heard, “Thought it’s all a waste of time and resources to you.”

“Mm, yes,” Sherlock said, and even he himself wasn’t sure whether it was an instance of affirmation or disagreement.

“Well—” John said, “all right. Tell me about it once you’re arrived at a conclusion.”

Sherlock nodded almost absentmindedly before he blinked himself out of his thoughts and said, “John?”

“Hm?” John looked up from his phone.

“Would you like to have penetrative sex?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Anal sex,” Sherlock said. “In which one of us would insert—”

“No—That’s not—I know what anal sex is, Sherlock,” John interrupted. He was flustered; Sherlock found it endearing. “But it’s, uh, sudden.”

“Is it?” Sherlock asked. “I’d have thought it a natural progression.”

“Well,” John said, having recovered from his surprise. “I—do _you_ want to?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied candidly. “I find the notion appealing, although I’ve not tried it before.”

John let out a fond laugh. “To think you were all blushing and shy that first time I jerked you off.”

“Mm,” Sherlock acknowledged. “So?”

“Oh—uhm. Yes. Obviously.” John grinned. “Yes, Sherlock. I’d like to have penetrative anal sex with you. When do we start?” he added jokingly.

“Now,” Sherlock answered.

John’s lips parted at that, and Sherlock watched as his tongue darted out to dab at the pink flesh. John’s eyes seemed to darken, and his voice was lower, rougher, when he echoed, “Now?”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock said, trying to mask his breathlessness with affected insufferability. “You have nothing better to do, anyway.” He eyed John’s phone screen meaningfully (John was in the midst of some pointless matching game).

A little sheepish, John turned off the screen and tossed his phone on the bedside table. He turned back to Sherlock, his eyes almost scrutinising. “Not that I’m opposed to it, Sherlock. But shouldn’t we, I don’t know, discuss it more formally before we actually do it?”

“You’re a doctor, John. I trust you.” Sherlock directed his gaze at John’s left ear. “Plus, I _have_ done some reading up on the subject. And—experimented, a bit.”

Sherlock momentarily flicked his eyes back to John’s face and saw that John’s eyebrows had shot up. “‘Experimented,’” he repeated, a stated question.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, holding his voice calm. “Fingers, mostly”—his cheeks warmed only slightly—“But I’ve tried a vibrator.”

And John’s _eyes_ —the look in John’s eyes sent shocks of thrill up Sherlock’s spine and it was truly a glorious sensation.

John shook his head a little, as if in disbelief. “You—I—fuck, Sherlock.”

“That is the idea,” Sherlock said, nodding.

Amusement joined arousal and incredulity in John’s eyes. “So you want me to—” John broke off, gesturing vaguely with his hand.

“—to do the fucking, yes,” Sherlock completed for him, idly tasting the swear word on his tongue and taking delight in the way John’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“Right now,” John said.

“We’ve already established this, John,” Sherlock chided.

“Right. Ok,” John said, half to himself. And then he surged forward and crashed their mouths together, but even in his roughness John took the care to mind Sherlock’s jaw where it was bruised, his fingers barely fluttering over the discoloured area.

They were both hard by the time they separated, their breaths mingling fervently. Sherlock wasted no time tugging at John’s shirt, and seconds later they were both devoid of clothing, a state both of them found to be more than agreeable.

Sherlock made a low, keening noise when John’s mouth trailed kisses down his neck, over his shoulders and latched onto a nipple. His arousal heightened with each swirl of soft tongue and feather-caress of teeth, and he brushed himself on the jut of John’s hipbone, seeking friction.

“John,” he said, his voice almost entreating.

“Hm?” John replied, humming against Sherlock’s skin and sending shivers of action potentials along Sherlock’s nerves.

Sherlock wriggled slightly and twisted his arm, retrieving a bottle of lube from underneath his pillow. He practically shoved it at John.

John huffed out a laugh. “You—god, Sherlock. I see you’ve planned this all out.”

Sherlock didn’t deny it. There was no point in that. He nodded instead, and, trying to sound somewhat authoritative, said, “Put your fingers in me.”

“Yes, all right,” John assented easily. “Gladly.”

There was the sound of the bottle being uncapped, and then slick fingers trailed down Sherlock’s cock and over his balls to rest between his buttocks. John circled around the hole with two slippery fingers, drawing sharp gasps out of Sherlock's mouth. With his thumb, John traced over Sherlock’s scrotal septum, dragging the digit down the ridge of his perineal raphe. John leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the inside of Sherlock’s thigh, nibbling lightly and leaving chilly dampness where his lips and tongue had touched then left.

Sherlock pushed down, bearing onto John’s finger where it was slippery and teasing and not enough. He felt John’s breathing hitch in response.

“Fuck,” John muttered softly. “Can I—”

“Yes,” Sherlock interrupted emphatically, pressing down even more insistently into John’s touch.

“Ok. Let me just…” John swallowed, let out a shaky breath. His removed his fingers from Sherlock’s skin only for a moment, but Sherlock felt the loss acutely, as if someone had taken a part of his awareness from him; his entire consciousness had been trained on where John's hand had been, and its sudden disappearance left Sherlock wrecked and mourning the loss, disoriented.

When the fingers finally returned, they were slightly chilled and slicker. Sherlock spread his legs eagerly ( _wantonly,_ he thought absentmindedly, not quite bringing himself to care) and John obliged, applying (delicious, amazing, _fantastic_ ) pressure at Sherlock’s entrance until the tip of his finger slipped inside.

A soft groan escaped with Sherlock’s exhale, and John pushed deeper. Sherlock could feel the ridges of John’s knuckles as they slipped in past the sphincter muscle, the exploratory prodding of John's fingers inside of him.

“You’re tight,” John murmured, “and warm.”

“Stating—the obvious,” Sherlock managed ineloquently. Then his spine was arching and his eyelids were falling closed and—“ _Yes. There,_ ” he demanded raggedly, then gasped soundly when John’s finger brushed once more over his prostate, sending flashes of pleasure zapping through his body.

“I’m going to add a second finger,” John said. “All right?”

Sherlock nodded in almost frantic movements, desperate for more. The stretch bordered on but was not quite a burn, and Sherlock’s nervous system was too preoccupied with other, more pleasant nerve signals to mind the slight discomfort that accompanied John’s second finger. John wasted no time, his fingers aiming straight for that bundle of nerves inside Sherlock, finding it and rubbing over it, around it.

Sherlock squirmed and panted, seeking contact and friction and pleasure. He pinched a neglected nipple with his own hand and massaged the nub in tantalising circular motions, his eyes fluttering between closed and half-lidded. With his other hand, Sherlock sought out his cock, which felt stiff and heavy and flushed. He dragged his fingers up the shaft and drew his thumb over the tip, spreading the pre-ejaculate and letting out a sigh of relief. John’s fingers crooked inside of him and Sherlock felt the pleasing stretch that accompanied the motion, rocking into it and urging John to touch his prostate again, more, _now._

When a third finger danced inquisitively at his entrance, Sherlock released his bottom lip from his teeth and pushed himself up on one elbow, letting go of his nipple. “Do it,” he said, his voice raw and breathy.

John abided, and together they watched as John’s fingers disappeared into Sherlock’s arse. Sherlock’s grip grew firmer on his cock. He relished the positively obscene sensation of being opened up, of taking John’s fingers into himself; the intimacy and liberation. _Not just transport,_ he mused distractedly, hyperaware of every point where his and John’s bodies came in contact. John trailed his lips roughly up the crease where Sherlock’s thigh meets his pelvis, then John’s other hand joined Sherlock’s over his cock. _Good._

“John,” Sherlock breathed out unsteadily. “Get on with it.”

John’s fingers flicked over Sherlock’s prostate, pressing down firmly and making Sherlock’s hips buck. “Bossy,” John scolded, but the ragged nature of his voice undermined the intended admonishing nature of his remark.

“I’m more than ready,” Sherlock reasoned. “Kiss me,” he demanded, and was torn between feeling pleased when John moved up to obey and feeling empty and cold when John’s fingers slipped out of him in the process. He took solace in the fact that their cocks were now brushing.

“Fuck, Sherlock, you’re exquisite,” John murmured into Sherlock’s jaw as their hands worked over their cocks, pre-come mixed with residual lube on John’s fingers.

“Mm,” Sherlock responded, rolling their hips together. He locked a hand around John’s neck and yanked him down, then whispered quietly, “I want you inside of me, right now.”

John breathed in sharply and swallowed. “Ok. All right.” John shifted his hips, and Sherlock raised his knees and held them apart, pushing himself slightly up with the pads of his feet on the mattress.

“Sherlock—god,” John said. There was the sound of him fumbling with the bottle of lube, the wet noise as he coated himself with the slick, and then there it was: the head of John’s cock positioned between Sherlock’s arse cheeks, and the sensation sent electricity through Sherlock’s entire body. He bore down, impatient and greedy, and savoured the moan that dropped like wispy embers from John’s lips.

It burned when the tip breached Sherlock—a feeling of being stretched and opened and in the process of being filled in a place he hadn’t quite known was empty—and Sherlock groaned appreciatively even as his body tensed in reflex. John paused and looked down at Sherlock, liquid concern swirling with desire in his eyes.

“Sorry,” John murmured. “Does it hurt?”

Sherlock made his best effort at eye-rolling and said, imperiously, “It burns slightly, yes, but it’s hardly unbearable.”

John sighed, exasperated. “Sherlock, I would really rather not sex between us be merely ‘not unbearable.’”

Sherlock gave his cock a leisurely stroke, then said, “I said _hardly_ unbearable, John. Implying that I find the sensation far from unbearable.”

John gave Sherlock a look that spoke thoroughly of fondness and frustration—a look that promptly dissolved when Sherlock pushed down and slid John deeper into his arse and John’s eyelids flitted briefly closed in pleasure. John met his downward foray halfway, surging up to drive deeper, closer: and it was lovely. The burn was accessory to the feeling of being full, and they both took a moment to appreciate the connectedness. John’s lips were delightfully gentle when they covered Sherlock’s once more, searching, soothing.

“ _Move,_ ” Sherlock gasped out in between kisses, and John swooped back down to give Sherlock’s lip a nibble before shifting his hips, pulling away then sliding back; again, and again.

Sherlock’s body rocked back and forth with each thrust, and his breaths fell into pace with the brushing together of John’s cock and his prostate: the hitches incorporated into the pattern of his breathing so seamlessly that it felt natural. And this was different from his own sessions with probing fingers or the vibrator, because the rhythm wasn’t his own, the movements weren’t predictable like they’d been with his own hand, the intrusion didn’t feel invasive as the vibrator had—this was John, and he was giving as much as he was taking, and the pace belonged to both of them, or to neither of them. Sherlock allowed himself to be lulled into the pleasure, for once happy enough to simply give himself over to physical sensations. Every iteration of their bodies’ movements brought about an inexplicable sense of security within Sherlock; the knowledge that John would come back to him, as regular as the ebb and flow of tides, as unfathomable as the ends of an expanding universe.

“Sherlock,” John said, his voice warm and near, as if tasting the syllables of Sherlock’s name and treasuring the flavour. His eyes were hooded, and Sherlock didn’t think he was expecting an answer from him.

He gave one anyway—“Yes.”

Sherlock’s pelvis tightened when he felt John’s fingers wrap around his cock, moving in time with the movement of their hips, and it was glorious, he was around John and John was around him and their bodies were entangled and slippery and touching in so many places.

The pace of their thrusting had picked up, the rhythm growing more frantic as they sought out friction and contact and—always—more, deeper, closer. Almost like a mantra. John trailed kisses over Sherlock’s skin—the side of Sherlock’s face, his neck, throat, clavicles—and Sherlock’s fingers dug into John’s shoulders, desperate and wanting and just that bit possessive. The angle of John’s thrusts seemed to Sherlock to be impeccably calculated, striking right where Sherlock craved it, exhilarating and unrelenting.

Familiar heat coiled and rolled in the pit of Sherlock’s abdomen, and John must have felt it in the way Sherlock’s thighs tensed slightly, for he tightened his grip on Sherlock’s cock and infused his strokes with firm, luscious pressure, flicking his thumb over the tip in swirls that made Sherlock pant up into his mouth.

“J-John,” Sherlock managed. “I need—I’m— _oh._ ” His back arched, his toes furled.

“Oh god,” John said, eyes wide and rapt as he took in Sherlock’s expression. “ _Sherlock._ Yes—that’s it, let go, I’ve got you. _Fuck._ ” John swallowed visibly, blinking rapidly, as if he didn’t want to miss a moment of Sherlock’s orgasmic appearance.

Sherlock bucked as the force of his climax rushed through him, the intensity of it almost violent. He was only dimly aware of the wet, wrecked, ragged sound that left his lips and the damp strings of semen painting his stomach.

“You’re beautiful,” he heard John whisper in an equally ragged voice. Felt John rock desperately into him, just as wrecked.

Sherlock felt warm, and heavy, and sated, content to lie there limply as John fucked him into his own release. His breathing was still shaky, and, he imagined, so was the smile he directed up at John. Sherlock reached up and rubbed a thumb over John’s nipple, pushing down at angles which he’d observed had the greatest effect on John.

John swore, and then Sherlock felt the arrhythmic jerking of John’s hips. He hooked his legs around John’s waist and pushed him close, indicating wordlessly that it was fine, John could ejaculate inside of him. John buried his face in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, groaning helplessly into Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock thought he could feel John’s semen in him, and took a moment to consider whether he found the notion disturbing or alluring. Then he promptly chucked the thought from his mind and simply wrapped his arms around John, absentmindedly cataloguing John’s postcoital heart rate.

▼

“Sticky,” Sherlock commented later, as John moved off him and flopped onto the mattress beside him. He felt regrettably empty but pleasantly sore, though he worried briefly how he’d feel the next morning.

John laughed, the sound ringing like music in Sherlock’s ears. “We did that,” he said.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, turning onto his side so he faced John; he grimaced slightly at the sensation of semen trickling out of his arsehole.

“Just like that,” John said, disbelieving mirth in his voice. “On a whim.”

“Not exactly,” Sherlock disagreed. “I’d been thinking about it for a while, and I’m certain the thought had crossed your mind more than once.”

“Yeah,” John admitted. He turned onto his side as well, and met Sherlock’s gaze with warm eyes. “Yes, it has.”

“And?” Sherlock prompted.

John scooted closer and brushed his lips over the tip of Sherlock’s nose. “It was spectacular.”

“Good,” Sherlock said, aiming for haughty but unable to suppress a smile. And it _was_ spectacular, he agreed silently; he never wanted it to pause, or stop. The best way to savour something was to savour it.

▼

“I love you,” John murmured later, when he had wiped away the semen on their bodies with exceptional skill and tenderness and they were lying curled together in the dark. “Sherlock, god—I love you so much.”

In response, Sherlock snuggled deeper against John, burrowing into his warmth. He listened to John’s breaths, felt the pulse of his heart under his fingers. Just before John was completely drawn under the veil of sleep, Sherlock whispered it back. Six words—“I love you too, John Watson.”

He knew John heard him, and knew he was smiling.

▶▶

Sherlock gave John a dark-blue-and-grey crew neck jumper for Christmas, argyle pattern running across the chest in perfect overlapping diamonds.

“Thanks,” John said as he took over the garment. He held it up in inspection, lowered it and smiled at Sherlock a little quizzically. “Thought you didn’t like me in jumpers,” he pointed out.

“That’s because your jumpers are atrocious,” Sherlock explained, tone imperious.

“Why, thank you,” John replied wryly.

“And yet you still insist on wearing them,” Sherlock continued after a moment. “So I might as well give you a more aesthetically pleasing one.”

John grinned, and (as happened whenever John grinned) Sherlock felt a compelling urge to kiss him. “I’m flattered, Sherlock. Really.” John shifted his gaze back down at the jumper and ran his hand lightly over the material. “It’s… surprisingly thoughtful of you.”

Sherlock huffed indignantly. “The ‘surprisingly’ is uncalled for, John,” he said, voice sulky.

John laughed, stepped forward, placed a hand on Sherlock’s nape to pull him down and pecked Sherlock’s mouth in an act of mollification. “Yes, all right, of course. It’s very thoughtful. I love the colours—”

Sherlock watched John frown and look at the jumper, thumbing over the fabric and thinking. (John is endlessly entertaining when he thinks; fascinating.) Sherlock saw the moment John realised.

“Hold on,” John said, looking up at Sherlock. “You—did you _make_ this?”

“Excellent, John. Nice to know you’re capable of connecting the dots,” Sherlock quipped, steadfastly ignoring the tinge of nervousness in his mind.

John’s mouth opened and closed as he looked back and forth between Sherlock and the jumper. Finally, he said, “You said you needed yarn—you asked me to choose the colours.”

“Yes.”

“And—that’s why you so randomly decided to do the laundry last month.”

“To obtain measurements,” Sherlock agreed.

“That’s—thank you, Sherlock,” John said, the sincerity in his eyes easing Sherlock’s breaths.

“Mm,” Sherlock replied.

“Come here,” John said, and obediently Sherlock leaned down, allowing John to capture his lips in another kiss. It lasted longer this time, woven as it was of sentiment and unspoken thoughts. Eagerness threaded through the soft, yielding movements of their mouths. A little bit of tongue.

“I didn’t know you could knit,” John said, breath fluttering against Sherlock’s chin.

Sherlock inclined his head slightly, and their lips brushed as he spoke. “Easy enough to learn.”

“Of course,” John said, half-wonderingly. When he blinked, Sherlock saw the glimmer of moisture in his eyes; it made Sherlock feel strangely powerful. John went on—“I’ve never had a handmade jumper.”

“Mm.” Sherlock was unsure what a proper response entailed.

“I love you,” John said, doling out the words as effortlessly as if they were universal truths but with as much candour as befitting sacred vows.

“The sentiment is reciprocated,” Sherlock replied, his words careful and stilted. He berated himself for his inability to be direct.

But John understood. John smiled the way a child did when handed a box of sweets, and Sherlock’s heart stumbled on.

“Well,” John said, appearing slightly awkward. “I got you something too.”

“That much is obvious,” Sherlock replied blithely.

John reached into a pocket and retrieved a small black box. Sherlock’s breath hitched only imperceptibly, and he held his eyes wide, almost afraid to blink. _A ring box,_ his mind concluded, whirring in place.

John grabbed Sherlock’s hand and promptly settled the box in Sherlock’s palm, wrapping Sherlock’s fingers around it. “Here,” John said, withdrawing his hands. (Sherlock missed the touch.)

With barely steady fingers, Sherlock pried open the box. He was right, of course. A silver-hued ring, two fine grooves running along one edge. Sherlock picked it up, felt its weight settled atop his fingers. Platinum, then; not a white gold alloy. Sherlock drew his finger along one rim, feeling the smooth curvature cool against his skin. It felt like something was caught in his throat, so Sherlock swallowed: once, twice. Finally, he met John’s questioning eyes. Sherlock held the ring out to John, and when John took it, Sherlock left his hand in the air. “Put it on,” he demanded.

John smiled then; it seemed dazzling to Sherlock. John wrapped his fingers around Sherlock’s and pushed the ring enquiringly at the tip of Sherlock’s ring finger.

_Ok?_

Sherlock pushed back against the cold band of metal. _Yes._

Slowly, gently, John slid the ring down the length of Sherlock’s finger until it rested snugly at the base, right about his knuckle. John didn’t let go of Sherlock’s hand; Sherlock made no move to pull back.

They stood there for at least ten seconds. Sherlock kept his gaze on his ringed finger, and he could feel John’s eyes fixed on him, curious and hopeful. Ignorant of social interaction as Sherlock might have been, he was well aware of the implications of being given a ring. Promise, vow, pledge, declaration, oath—Sherlock’s blood rushed in his ears. This was the problem with symbolism: Objects meant things that were usually left unspoken, the uncertainties left dangling; and yet the silent words were the heaviest of them all.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said, meeting John’s eyes.

John gave Sherlock’s fingers a firm squeeze, brushed his thumb over the metal band shining on Sherlock’s finger. “You’re welcome,” he replied.

And this time, at least, Sherlock heard the things left unvoiced. He smiled.

▶▶

“All right, Sherlock,” came Lestrade’s voice from the other end of the phone. “Good work. Though I really do wish you had waited before going in—”

Sherlock was barely listening. The greater part of him was growing increasingly frantic as he began to retrace his steps.

“—Sherlock? Are you listening?” Lestrade called. “Well, anyway, thank you for the informa—”

“Shut up,” Sherlock said, then hung up. He strode back into the ostentatiously derelict building he’d just snuck out of.

▼

Sherlock was two corridors and one stairwell away from the entrance when they caught him, bound him and hauled him into the basement.

▼

John’s eyes were as stormy as the sounds of his footsteps when he entered the hospital room. Sherlock kept his countenance indifferent—which was to say that he continued to feign sleep. Beneath the white hospital blanket, his fingers fiddled with the warmed metal of his ring, taking comfort in its now-familiar presence.

“Sherlock, I know you’re awake,” John said. “The nurse told me.”

Sherlock pursed his lips before reluctantly opening his eyes. “John.”

John paced to Sherlock’s bedside and threw himself roughly into the chair. His eyes scanned the parts of Sherlock that weren’t covered; bandages and bruises.

“Greg told me what happened,” John said (unnecessarily). “What were you _thinking?_ Were you even thinking?”

“I’m always thinking,” Sherlock couldn’t help but retort.

John glared down at him. “Oh, and this is the fruit of your _thinking?_ A concussion, a broken arm, severe bruising around your neck—” John paused, affected. “ _Sherlock._ _Why_ do you do this?”

“It’s a _minor_ concussion,” Sherlock pointed out, “and a fractured arm.”

“That doesn’t make it better!” John said. “You—Sherlock, I thought we had an agreement. You can’t just—just run off into danger for no reason—”

“It wasn’t for no reason,” Sherlock muttered.

John levelled a stern look at him and waited.

“The ring,” Sherlock mumbled, .

“The ring?” John prompted.

“I dropped it in there,” Sherlock explained, voice quiet. “I had to take it off for a little bit.”

John simply looked at Sherlock for a moment, and his gaze made Sherlock feel strangely transparent. Finally, John breathed out a long, measured sigh. “The ring isn’t more important than your _life,_ Sherlock.”

“I’m hardly dead.”

“You’re _hurt._ ”

“I’ll heal.”

“You _idiot._ ” And then John’s lips stole over Sherlock’s, gentle. The pressure on Sherlock’s fresh bruises sent tingles through Sherlock’s nerves; an increased sensitivity that was not quite pain. Sherlock’s ringed hand snaked out from under the blanket to cover John’s, the contact making the entire situation very much better—oxytocin, probably.

John didn’t pull away when the kiss ended. Hovering above Sherlock, he said, “Next time, leave the ring.”

“But—” Sherlock began to protest.

“I’ll get you another one,” John promised. “I’ll get you as many as you lose.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock said quietly. “You don’t have that much money.”

“I’ll figure it out,” John said. “So don’t ever endanger your life for the ring again.”

“… Very well,” Sherlock conceded.

“Good.” Satisfied, John settled back into his chair.

“For the record, though,” Sherlock said, “I wasn’t _endangering_ my life. I could always have stopped—”

“ _Sherlock._ You didn’t—”

“I didn’t,” Sherlock agreed. “But it was always a viable option, had I truly considered my life to be threatened.”

John wore a complicated expression on his face; an internal debate was taking place. _Had_ Sherlock’s life been in danger, what would John have advised that Sherlock do? Do nothing and pray to fortune, or use his ability with the possible consequence of being trapped in time? It was a difficult question, but then again, those seemed to make up the most common type of questions in Sherlock’s life.

“I didn’t do it because I knew Lestrade would get there in a more or less timely manner,” Sherlock added, redundantly. He didn’t say that he had grown (however slightly) to fear the prospect of a frozen eternity, now that he knew what it felt like to anticipate the next beats of his heart.

▶

Sherlock was discharged from the hospital two days later. He had wanted to leave after one night, but John had been adamant and Sherlock had acquiesced.

Setting foot in 221B, Sherlock felt uncharacteristically tired; his shoulder blades were sore and his brain felt distastefully swollen. He blamed the hospital mattress and the concussion.

It was wonderful to be back; Sherlock thought he could make peace with this sense of attachment and belonging—it wasn’t that terrible to be bound to a place or a person, after all.

John chuckled when he saw Sherlock just standing in their living room, eyes surveying the space. “Missed it, did you,” John said, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

“Slightly,” Sherlock admitted, then announced, “I’m going to shower.”

“Let me help,” John offered readily.

Sherlock regarded John with one lifted brow.

“No—well. I mean, because of your injuries and all,” John hastily explained. “Not”—John waved a hand at the air—“whatever you're thinking.”

Sherlock's mouth twisted into a small smirk. “Do as you please, John. I’m not going to stop you.”

▼

“We were always going to end up doing what I was thinking,” Sherlock commented idly as John dragged his fingers up Sherlock’s cock, steaming water running rivulets down Sherlock’s bare skin and drenching more than half of John's shirt. John's laugh reverberated against the side of Sherlock’s neck, where John was pressing warm, sloppy kisses over the yellowish stains of fading bruises.

“Of course we were,” John mumbled against Sherlock’s skin, voice equally wry. “Wouldn’t want you to have to struggle wanking with that broken right arm.”

“Fractured,” Sherlock corrected automatically, then inhaled in a sharp gasp.

“Mmhm,” John hummed along the underside of Sherlock’s jaw.

Once Sherlock had (temporarily) recovered his breath, he continued, “Moreover, I— _hmm_ —do not need two hands for something as rudimentary as masturbation.”

“Yeah?” John asked, the wind of his voice ghosting the shell of Sherlock’s ear. John's hand did a combination of twisting, tightening and pressing down that made Sherlock’s thighs tense; it wasn't long until Sherlock was spilling into John’s hand, panting. They watched as the streams of the shower washed the semen from John’s fingers, Sherlock leaning liquid-limbed into John, feeling boneless and satisfyingly lightheaded.

“That was nice,” Sherlock said; he sounded bleary.

“You’re welcome,” John replied. He prodded Sherlock. “Now get rinsed. You look like you’re just about to fall asleep.”

“What about you?” Sherlock had enough presence of mind to ask, palming half-heartedly at John’s clothed crotch.

John gently removed his hand, and there was a smile (so very _warm,_ how does John manage it?) in his voice. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll make it up to me later,” he said.

▼

Sherlock would never cease to be astonished that he could wake up in the odd hours of the night and find himself cocooned underneath the covers in a bed he shared with John. Each occurrence of such brought a new bout of breathless joy through Sherlock’s body, which was still relatively new on Sherlock’s list of Regular Mental States.

▼

Sherlock did, of course, make it up to John. He used his mouth in accordance with the assistance of his uninjured left hand. It all turned out rather favourably.

▶▶

“No, Sherlock. We are _not_ going to cover our living room walls with fluorescent paint,” John said.

“Phosphorescent,” Sherlock corrected. “And it would only be one wall.”

They stared at each other, and then John said, “I don’t see why you can’t do this in your own room, since you’ve not been using it anyway.”

“The exposure is off,” Sherlock explained. He looked at John and waited, expectant.

As usual, John gave in. “We’re painting over it once you’re done with your experiment.”

“No, John,” Sherlock scoffed. “ _You_ are, since you’re the one bothered by it.”

John glared at Sherlock, who looked evenly back. Expelling a frustrated sigh, John said, “God damn it, Sherlock. You’re impossible.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Oh, do shut up.”

▶

They ended up with glow-in-the-dark paint crusted on their hands, smeared across their faces and stuck in their hair. They probably should have bothered with gloves.

“Great,” John muttered at the sight of their reflection. “We look like fucking biohazards.”

“Mm, but it’s not a bad look.”

John reached over and with paint-coated fingers drew a wobbly line down the side of Sherlock’s face. “I s’pose not.” He wiped his hand on his shirt, dug around his pocket and brandished his phone. Then, to Sherlock’s (only mild) dismay, John snapped a picture of them together, the dim quality of the natural afternoon light showcasing the neon splattered all over them.

“This is the proper way to do it,” John said, and it was one of those rare occasions on which Sherlock couldn’t read John’s mind and which never failed to make Sherlock more fascinated with John. John smiled at his expression. “This, Sherlock, is how you properly immortalise a moment in time—this way, we’re in it together.”

It was like this, with John: John was like this.

▶▶

Spring warmed and autumn chilled, and then the temperature was once more hovering around the freezing point. Sherlock stopped time briefly only twice, once for himself and the other time for John (he did not inform John in either case, but Mycroft texted him admonishments afterwards). John took out the jumper Sherlock had made and started wearing it again, and despite its obvious wornness, the garment made both of them warm. Breaths fogged in the streets, ice danced on the surfaces of lakes, festive lights adorned bare branches and John took to making Sherlock hot cocoa in the evenings. The steaming cups were sugary and so were their kisses, afterwards.

Sherlock had been thinking, and he had it all planned out, from waking up to chasing down a murderer and finally to dinner. He cringed whenever he thought too much about it, because the entire thing reeked of sentimentality; then again, John liked sentiment.

Morning sex was sleepy and sensual, indicative of their comfort in and familiarity with each other’s mind and body and noises of intimacy. After, John permitted Sherlock to snuggle limply in his arms, bonelessly sated, for a bit more than half an hour before he gently disentangled himself to put together some breakfast. Sherlock nuzzled the residual warmth of the sheets where John had been, eyes closed but awake.

Lestrade didn’t quite have a murder for them, to Sherlock’s sulky disappointment. He grudgingly accepted a serial theft, which took him less than four consecutive hours. It was fine, though, because as always John was impressed, and Sherlock basked in the way John looked at him—delightful.

Dinner at Angelo’s, their knees bumping together underneath the table. Smiles on their lips, eyes on each other. This is happiness, Sherlock thought. _He could have this._

Back at 221B, they showered and had some tea. Then John got ready for bed, and Sherlock steeled himself.

Item in hand, Sherlock ambled up and into their room to find John where and how he’d expected: sitting on the bed, laptop in lap, typing. He looked up when he sensed Sherlock at the doorway and smiled. Sherlock padded over and climbed onto the bed, hyperconscious of the beating of his heart. He sat facing John and for a moment just watched the combined profile of John and his laptop. Yes, Sherlock thought, he would like this.

“Sherlock?” John asked, his fingers now resting still on the keyboard.

Sherlock blinked and took a breath. He tilted his head at the laptop. “Put that away first.”

John’s expression was curious, and he did. “What is it?”

“Give me your hand and close your eyes,” Sherlock demanded.

“All right,” John said, nodded, held out his hand; didn’t ask why.

Sherlock shifted and brought the circular band out from the cuff of his shirt. With his other hand he carefully took John’s offered one, the grooves of their fingers locking together with familiarity. Sherlock watched, hardly daring to breathe, as his own fingers brought the piece of metal to the tip of John’s fourth finger. His hand might have been shaking.

At the first press of the slightly warmed metal, John’s breathing stuttered. His fingers twitched in Sherlock’s loose grasp. His lips parted, and he seemed about to say something.

Sherlock beat him to it. “John,” he said, pushing the ring down the length of John’s finger and tightening his hold on John’s hand.

John reciprocated. “Yeah?” he asked, slightly gruff.

“Open your eyes.”

John did, and there was so much emotion in his eyes that Sherlock could receive but would never be able to fully decipher; it was beautiful nonetheless. John’s gaze flicked down to the ring sitting on his finger. Platinum, too. Durable and not ostentatious. A satin finish with a vertical channel of three small diamonds. Sherlock’s breaths were still shallow.

“I thought about it,” Sherlock heard himself say. At least his motor skills were functional. “You said I should tell you about it once I’ve reached a conclusion.”

“… And?” John asked, voice quiet enough to be a whisper.

“And”—Sherlock toyed with John’s fingers—“let’s get married.”

Sherlock watched, almost mesmerised, as salt glimmered and trickled out the rim of John’s left eye, drawing a singular uneven trail down his cheek. A broken laugh ( _happy_ ); John gripped Sherlock’s hand and stepped close, closer, brought their mouths into a kiss, pulled away, said, “Yes, of course.” Smiled—wide, sincere, dazzling, heart-tugging—“Let’s.”

Sherlock’s heart tripped over the lines of its rhythm. Frenzy in Sherlock’s mind. Relief swirled into joy into John into that strange unscientific word: love. He clashed their lips once more, suddenly desperate, thoughts jumbling. Teeth, tongue, taste, tease—yes, like that; yes, more; yes, ok; yes, _let’s._

“Took you a year,” John said, catching his breath. “I gave you that ring last Christmas.”

“Three hundred and fifty-seven days,” Sherlock corrected. “Not Christmas today.”

“Close enough,” John said. He rested his forehead on Sherlock’s shoulder, a hand against Sherlock’s nape, fingertips buried in Sherlock’s hair. “Not a waste of time or resources, then?” he murmured.

“… No,” Sherlock voiced the decision at which he’d long since arrived. He felt the curve of John’s smile through the fabric of his shirt.

“I love you,” John said. Then repeated it.

“Yes,” Sherlock said. _And I you;_ he knew John heard it.

John nudged more insistently against Sherlock, tightening the semi-hug in which they were currently engaged. “Sherlock?”

“Mm?”

“I want you now.”

“Just as well,” Sherlock replied.

“Good,” John said.

There was more kissing, fervent and tender in equal parts. Skin brushed over cloth, over skin, under cloth. Hard against soft, hard against hard. Then shirts were removed, pyjama pants shucked aside. Bared; intimate. Sherlock would never stop thinking it marvellous, to feel vulnerable and enjoy it. To feel exposed but unafraid.

Lube was fumbled out, but when Sherlock made to prepare himself for penetration, John’s hand stopped him. John read Sherlock’s question in his gaze, and eyes locked, John guided Sherlock’s slicked-up hand to his own entrance. “Do it like this, tonight?”

Sherlock nodded, leaned down for a brushing of mouths. His fingers were slippery in the crevice between John’s arse cheeks as he drew them back and forth over taut, intimate skin, around the opening. Sherlock brushed his thumb lightly over testicles; John hummed in approval. When Sherlock pushed a finger in, John tensed initially before gradually loosening up. Sherlock pressed and rubbed methodically inside John, playing John’s body as expertly as he could his violin, drawing upon information accumulated from all the previous times they had done this, and despite being more often the receiving partner, Sherlock was very familiar with John’s body.

John gasped when Sherlock smoothed his finger over his prostate, spine curving. Sherlock’s cock stirred appreciatively at the sight, but he ignored it and instead dedicated a second finger to explore the insides of John, who was soon grinding down on Sherlock’s hand, hips tilting to get Sherlock where he wanted him. In response, Sherlock crooked the tips of his fingers, easing John’s quest for stimulation. The third finger made John groan aloud and say, “Sherlock. Oh, _fuck—Sherlock._ ”

The roughness of John’s voice sent a jolt of arousal down Sherlock’s spine. The movement of the fingers he had inside John became purposeful, pushing and stretching as Sherlock took his own erection in his other hand and stroked himself.

“Sherlock—you can—I’m ready,” John said. “Please. I want to feel you inside me.”

“All right,” Sherlock agreed, withdrawing his fingers and slicking up his cock with additional lube. He dragged the tip of his erection up the cleft of John’s arse, and when he settled finally at John’s hole, John very naturally pushed back, seeking. John whimper-whined at the initial sting as the head of Sherlock’s cock slid in by steady increments, his muscles tensing beneath Sherlock’s touch. Sherlock stilled and wrapped his fingers around John’s cock, teasing it as he allowed John to accustom himself to the stretch.

“I’m good, now,” John said before reaching up to bring Sherlock in for a kiss. His legs drew around Sherlock’s waist and tugged Sherlock forward, inward. The sliding was a delicacy. They sighed into each other’s mouths when Sherlock was settled fully in John. Then Sherlock pulled slightly out before pushing back in; repeat. It was warm inside John, and it felt like an (extremely intimate, entirely sensual) embrace.

They were unhurried, their movements deliberate, savouring all the ways their bodies reacted to each other, the sensations they induced in one another. Security, and propinquity, and trust, and acceptance. Their bodies pressed together, solid, tangible, reassured and reassuring. Their hips rocked in tandem. Their lips touched and their tongues bickered. Their sighs and groans mingled like secrets encoded in sentiment, promises fortified in passion.

They knew how to pleasure each other. Sherlock ensured that each of his thrusts brought his cock grazing over John’s prostate, his mind attentive to the little tales of John’s body. This was more than take-and-give; it was simpler and more difficult to be willing to give without expectation of return.

“ _Yes,_ ” John panted against Sherlock’s jaw.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, equally reverent.

Sherlock came with a stutter of his hips, a groan on his lips. His head half-buried in the crook of John’s neck, muffling the ragged _I love you_ he so rarely—too rarely—spoke out loud. John said it back easily, and gently prodded Sherlock’s head up; John watched him, and Sherlock let him look, see what was written on his face, in his eyes, over his skin. After a few blissful seconds, still weak-limbed from his orgasm, Sherlock grasped John’s cock and stroked. John’s hips canted up into his Sherlock’s hand, and moments later semen spilled onto Sherlock’s fingers and John’s stomach.

Sherlock wiped his hand almost carelessly on the bedsheet before collapsing carefully onto John, head over John’s scarred shoulder. He mouthed the scar tissue, feeling the rise and fall of John’s upper torso. Alive, here, with him.

After a moment, John wriggled and Sherlock flopped off him and onto his back beside John, immediately missing the warmth of their bodies pressed together. John tugged the blanket up and around both of them, snuggled closer, mused, “I’m going to feel this tomorrow.”

“The expected outcome,” Sherlock replied.

“The desired outcome,” John amended.

Sherlock turned into John, grimacing only slightly at the sensation of ejaculate on the sheets. “You can’t be very comfortable,” he mumbled into John’s skin, his hand feeling around the sticky area near John’s arse and between his thighs, wiping half-heartedly at residual lube and drying semen.

“I’m all right,” John said. He reached down to still Sherlock’s hand. “Just—I can’t very well fall asleep with your hand between my legs, Sherlock.”

▼

Sherlock woke the next morning to John’s open eyes fondly studying him and the soft drafts of his breaths. Real—this.

“Morning,” John greeted.

Sherlock took in the level of light in the room. Frowned, and asked, “Why aren’t you at work?”

John smiled and shuffled closer. “Didn’t feel like it.”

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow.

“You proposed to me yesterday. I’m feeling an overwhelming urge to spend time with you.”

Sherlock opened his mouth and closed it. He felt his cheeks warm and attempted to ignore it. “I see.”

John’s smile widened, and Sherlock couldn’t help but return one of his own. “Bed or breakfast?” John asked.

“… Bed— _mmm,_ ” Sherlock had barely gotten the word out before John’s mouth was over his, and Sherlock did not mind their morning breaths very much at all.

▶

“You have my congratulations, brother,” Mycroft said to him three days later.

Sherlock was at the Diogenes Club at the request of his brother, for reasons he could all too easily guess. “I did not ask for them,” Sherlock scoffed.

Mycroft’s raised brow was the only response he gave to Sherlock’s jibe. In the next instant he had schooled his expression back into one of seriousness. “I assume you know why you’re here, Sherlock.”

“However would I know that?” Sherlock quipped, sarcastic.

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed. “Sherlock, you must stop.”

Sherlock regarded his brother with his best empty expression.

“I know we agreed three times per year, but that’s appearing to be too much.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Sherlock said.

Mycroft’s jaw ticked. “You’ve felt it, too—the tenuity of your timeline. You can’t risk using your ability anymore.”

“I’ll use my ability when I deem it necessary,” Sherlock replied.

“Sherlock, for heaven’s sake—you’re getting married,” Mycroft said.

“I don’t see how that is relevant to this discussion.”

“All I’m asking is that you take better care of yourself, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked back steadily at Mycroft. “Don’t be solicitous, Mycroft. I care for myself perfectly well.”

▶▶

They squeezed wedding planning in between cases, because they’d lived together and slept in the same bed for so long now that neither felt a pressing need for an ostentatious ceremony. The sentiment was enough: the rings on their fingers, the words in their eyes, the smiles on their lips, the gasps in their nights.

The prospect of a wedding was pleasant, however, in that it gave Sherlock an excuse to ask John to dance. Sherlock’s offered hand, music ensconcing the flat and furniture out of the way: John would regard Sherlock with mirth in his eyes and _yes_ on his lips. They would sway and step and John would sometimes stumble, and when Sherlock steadied him and pulled him back into the rhythm, John would laugh and the sound never failed to make Sherlock smile.

And, as it turned out, there _was_ a difference between being entertained and being happy.

▶▶

“This is really happening,” John said, sounding endearingly giddy.

“Obvious,” Sherlock chided, although his own mental state was equally worked up.

“You know, Sherlock,” John deliberated aloud. “When we first met, I never expected that I’d one day see you get married.”

“Neither did I,” Sherlock replied, truthful.

John smiled. He reached up and took the collars of Sherlock’s shirt in his hands, adjusting fabric that didn’t need to be adjusted. It was an excuse for proximity, and Sherlock appreciated it just as much as John. He stepped into the touch; John’s hands stilled, and his knuckles pressed into Sherlock’s skin, a slight tremble to it. They held one another’s gaze, fascinated by the universe as reflected in the other’s eyes. Sherlock tilted his head down, drew his hand to the back of John’s head, closed the centimetres of distance between their mouths. Slow, careful not to mess up their hair. Silly concerns. Superficial. But this was a wedding that Sherlock had scoffed at, had not dared to hope for, had not thought he could want, and there might have been a romantic in Sherlock, after all, because he wanted it flawless.

They parted. John ran his tongue over his lip and looked at Sherlock, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “You’re wearing lipstick,” he said.

“Brilliant deduction.”

“Thanks. I learned from the best,” John responded. He peered curiously at Sherlock’s mouth. “God—I didn’t smear it, did I?”

“Of course not,” Sherlock retorted. “I’m confident in my calculations of the proper angle and pressure.”

“Of course,” John assented, smiling. Then, “Right. Time to go?”

Sherlock inclined his head in the slightest of nods and took John’s hand without hesitation. It was warm and solid and the unevenness of its bumps and folds were as familiar to Sherlock as Sherlock's own hands.

▼

The officiant was talking. Standard wedding vows, for the most part, trite and hackneyed at various points. Sherlock did not care, really, what was being said—he probably would have agreed to anything standing there with John Watson at his side. Truthfully, it had been more than enough to have John say _yes_ to him, and a registration of marriage was all he’d intended when he’d made his proposal. And it was enough, now, that the words were being said, however worn and banal they may be. Symbolic things, as Sherlock currently understood them, are not meant to be overly literal or exacting; they’re at their most effective when one does not scrutinise too hard or rationalise too strictly.

There were among the guests Mrs. Hudson, Harry, Molly, their acquaintances from the NSY, a few of John’s colleagues from the clinic, Mycroft (distasteful), Sherlock’s parents (at Mycroft’s pestering request, of course) and others, too, somewhat miscellaneously—both people they had known prior to each other and those they had come to know together. A few of the homeless network had even shown up. It was a strange amalgamation of people in many ways, and Sherlock didn’t particularly mind it.

The officiant had stopped talking, and then John’s voice rang out in no uncertain tones—“I hereby promise to love you in times both good and bad, when life seems easy and when it seems hard, when our love is simple and when it is an effort”—John eyes seemed to twinkle—“in life _and_ in death”— _forgiveness,_ Sherlock realised, warmth blooming in his chest cavity—“and every moment in between.” John’s eyes softened in fondness the reason for which Sherlock had tried and failed to fathom.

“You are an impossible man, Sherlock Holmes, and you are my best friend. You have saved me in more ways than you think, and you have done so much for me—I suspect much, much more than I would ever know. You are so much more than you give yourself credit for, and I am damn lucky to have met you, to fall in love with you, to be standing here with you. I love you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock was surprised to find dampness on his cheeks. He hadn’t expected that he would— _could_ —be so affected; and by a wedding, of all things. He’d said so himself, that a wedding is nothing more than a celebration of all that is specious and irrational, and he had meant it then. Yet John, as always, managed to bring exceptions into Sherlock’s life. Strange, beautiful, irrational exceptions at which Sherlock could never bring himself to scoff.

When it was his turn to speak, Sherlock was pleased ( _relieved_ ) to find his voice mostly steady. “I reciprocate your promises—namely, to love you always, whatever ambiguities and however long such a word entails.” Sherlock swallowed. “I do not know why you have decided that I am your best friend, but I find myself endlessly fortunate for that fact. As you’ve said, John, I am impossible—rude, arrogant and inconsiderate being a few of the implied synonyms—and almost everyone present has, by my estimation, been insulted by me at least twice”—John’s mouth curved in amusement, and Sherlock paused briefly before continuing—“But you have made me a better person—most of the people here can also attest to that. You have taught me what it is to love, showed me what it means to be someone’s best friend; you’ve made me all _sentimental,_ John, and somehow I do not mind it as much as I thought I would. I don’t say it very often—and I probably should—but I say it here: John Watson, I love you.”

There was the glimmer of tears in John’s eyes, too, and they shared a smile. The officiant continued his rambling, and Sherlock stole a glance out at the audience.

Mrs. Hudson was obviously crying; Harry, too; and Lestrade looked just as affected, if less ostensibly so. Mummy was understandably emotional, Sherlock supposed while fighting off the urge to scowl at Mycroft, who was sitting beside her.

The officiant concluded his babbling with the classic question, and Sherlock returned his gaze to John, stared back into John’s eyes as John answered, “I do.”

And Sherlock marvelled at the fact that two simple words—nominative first person singular pronoun followed by common auxiliary verb—could inspire in him such unequivocal joy. That one of the vaguest statements in the English language could hold so much, its meaning so unparalleled, the ambiguity of its implications so _welcome._ That he, Sherlock Holmes, could be the recipient of these two words.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice called out softly, bringing Sherlock out of his reverie. The officiant had finished repeating the question, this time directing it at Sherlock, and the entire room was waiting for his answer.

Sherlock blinked; had opened his mouth and was about to reply—to reciprocate those same two words—when a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through his spine and his lips fell quietly closed.

▶◀

Silence: a stillness having befallen the entire universe. Absolute zero but without the chill. An inexplicably heavy, unescapable blanket.

Sherlock blinks. Swallows. Runs his eyes in a survey of the frozen room. Turns back to John, whose gaze appears riveted on Sherlock, the emotions blatant and visible in them, distilled in the moment. Present, but inaccessible.

So this is what it feels like to be ripped out of time—it’s not as jarring as Sherlock had envisioned it would be. It’s rather fluid, smooth, neither dizzying nor disorienting. Almost as if Sherlock had simply effected his ability (except, of course, for the fact that he hasn’t).

Sherlock reaches out and places his hand on John’s cheek; it’s warm; or maybe that’s only his imagination. It’s enough.

“I do,” he says, and hears it only from the inside of his skull. He leans forward and carefully, slowly presses a kiss to John’s mouth.

John’s lips are still against Sherlock’s self-contained breaths. It’s enough. Sherlock pulls back.

All things considered, it’s a rather pleasant moment to be trapped in, Sherlock muses. At least he got to hear John’s vows, got to voice his own promises. One last _I love you._ Sherlock can still taste the words on his lips—it’s miraculous that he, of all people, has been granted the chance to say those words. It’s enough.

For Sherlock, eternity never ends—as is befitting the most literal sense of the word’s definition—but it is enough knowing that at the end of eternity, they’re together.

▶◀

“I do,” Sherlock said, and they were smiling against each other’s lips before the officiant could say anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about 2 years ago, back when I always felt mortified after writing anything sexually explicit (typing the word "cock" would make me internally struggle for hours afterwards lmao). The premise was loosely inspired by a time-traveling (time-manipulation?) Taiwanese drama series that I'd watched even earlier; I don't remember the name, though (and am too lazy to look it up).
> 
> I remember explaining this plotline to one of my friends (who wasn't into fanfiction but was willing to listen to me rant), and she thought it was very cruel of me to trap a character in eternity, alone. (Honestly, I agree. I'm sorry.)
> 
> Also, please forgive any inaccuracies in my portrayal of an Indian wedding—I did a lot of research as well as consulted an Indian friend about some specifics, but I probably still missed things.
> 
> My most vivid memory of working on this was at school. I had a free period and was typing away on a school laptop, earphones in listening to music, everything was super chill. So I totally did not notice when my calc teacher came into the room.  
> And then he was suddenly diagonally behind me and he was like, "What are you doing?"  
> And I was like _oh crap_ and had to VERY AWKWARDLY BLOCK THE SCREEN WITH MY BODY, with this evasive-leaning-sideways-elbow-on-table-pretending-to-suddenly-need-to-rest-my-head-on-my-hand pose.  
> And understandably my teacher was rather taken aback. He'd asked, "Are you writing?" And then I guess in response to my awkward-panicked maneuver he followed up with some eyebrow wiggling, then, "And you don't want me to see it?"  
> And I was like. AWKWARD NOD + NONCOMMITAL NOISE OF AFFIRMATION.
> 
> ... So that happened. I actually found chat records detailing the event from when I shared my trauma with a friend. And you'd think I'd then learn to be more cautious or something, and I _did_ take some measures: for example, only putting in one earbud, turning laptop screen brightness down to 25%, decreasing monitor screen-keyboard angle, etc. etc. But NOPE I actually ended up getting startled by _the same calc teacher_ AGAIN. Life was full of excitement.
> 
> Yeah. Back in those days I was pretty self-conscious about fanfic. (I don't know if I still am???) But also, part of it was probably because I felt that Sherlock is too well-known and that anyone would know I'm writing fanfic if they were to catch a glimpse of that name on my screen (whereas anime character names seemed less so, or at the very least I probably didn't fear judgment from those who would recognize anime names in the first place LOL).
> 
> Sorry for the long note and thank you / congrats if you actually read the whole thing ^^


End file.
